History of San Clemente

The Building History of the Medieval Church of S.
Clemente in Rome
Author(s): Joan E. Barclay Lloyd
Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Sep., 1986), pp. 197-
223
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The
Building History
of the
Medieval Church of S. Clemente
in Rome
JOAN
E. BARCLAY LLOYD LaTrobe
University
Although
the
early-12th-century
church
of
S. Clemente is one
of
the
most
significant
medieval monuments in
Rome,
there have been
few
studies in recent
years of
its architectural
layout
and structure. An
architectural
survey of
the
building by
the author and Mr.
J.
M.
Blake, FRIBA, helps
to
clarify
the
original design of
the church and
to indicate its successive
building phases:
a late-
11th-century
renova-
tion
of
the
lower, Early
Christian
basilica;
the
rebuilding of
the entire
upper
church in one
campaign by
Cardinal Anastasius
(c.
1099-
c.
1125);
and the construction
of
most
of
the atrium and
prothyron
by different workshops, perhaps
at a later date
by "Petrus,"
who is
reported
to have
completed
Cardinal Anastasius's
project.
Alternatively,
"Petrus"
may
have built one or all
of
a number
of
subsidiary structures,
known
from documentary
and
graphic
sources: a
medieval bell
tower,
a
sacristy,
the
chapel of
Saint
Cyril,
and the
oratory of
Saint
Servulus.
The
building history of
the medieval church is set within the
broader
historicalframework of
the
Gregorian Reform of
the Church
and the
12th-century
renascence
of Early
Christian architecture in
Rome.
Comparisons
can be made with the architectural
layout
and
liturgy of
the Lateran and Old St. Peter's.
A
15th-century document,
which
gives
the
wording of
an
inscrip-
tion
formerly
in the
church, refers
to
indulgences granted by Pope
Gelasius
II (1118-1119).
This
suggests
a date
of
consecration
prior
to
January 1119,
when that
pontiff
died.
THE CHURCH of S. Clemente stands between the Colos-
seum,
which was at the heart of Ancient
Rome,
and the
Lateran,
the site of the
city's
cathedral and the
pope's
residence
in the Middle
Ages.
An
Early
Christian
basilica,
which was
restored in the 9th and
again
in the 11th
century, preceded
the
present
medieval structure at S.
Clemente,
which was built in
the
early
12th
century.
This church is one of the most
signifi-
cant monuments of medieval Rome.
It is a well-known fact that there were
two,
and
possibly
three,
building campaigns
at S. Clemente in the late 11th and
early
12th centuries.
First,
the lower church
(the Early
Chris-
tian
basilica)
was
restored, perhaps shortly
after
1084;1
under
Cardinal Anastasius
(c. 1099-c. 1125)
an
entirely
new church
was built
higher up
and to a smaller
scale;2
finally, a
fragmen-
tary inscription suggests
that a certain Petrus
completed
the
upper
church after the Cardinal's
death.3
It is the aim of this
paper
to re-examine the evidence for these
campaigns,
in an
attempt
to
clarify
the
building history
of the church in the later
Middle
Ages.4
1. This would relate the medieval
repairs
to the Norman incursion
of 1084 under Robert
Guiscard, mentioned in Le Liber
Pontificalis,
ed.
L.
Duchesne, Paris, 1886-1892, ii, 291,
368. This
theory
will be dis-
cussed more fully
below.
2. Documentation for this
campaign
and Cardinal Anastasius's
dates will be treated more
fully
below.
3.
Again,
this will be discussed more
fully
below.
4. This
paper
is based on conclusions reached in
J.
E.
Barclay
Lloyd,
"The architecture of the medieval church and conventual
buildings
of S. Clemente in
Rome, c. 1080-c.
1300," Ph.D.
diss.,
London
University,
1980.
I
wish to thank Professor
J.
Gardner for
supervising
that
study
and Professor R. Krautheimer for his constant
encouragement
and
many helpful suggestions.
A revised version of
my thesis, The medieval church and
canonry of
S. Clemente in
Rome,
is to
be
published shortly by
the Irish Dominicans in
Rome, in their San
Clemente
Miscellany
series.
The
survey plans
and sections
published
as
Figs.
5 and 7 form
part
of a
survey
made
byJ.
M.
Blake, FRIBA,
and
myself; I
am
responsible
for the addition of the various
types
of
masonry. My
thanks
go
to
Mr. Blake for
carrying
out the
survey
and to Dr. D. Michaelides
for
helping
me to
identify
the materials of the S. Clemente columns
(Table I).
JSAH
XLV:197-223. SEPTEMBER 1986 197
198
JSAH, XLV:3, SEPTEMBER 1986
o 6o ,,T
;..
:.....
L
| i ?
-
"
,I,...
,
.
...
.
,.,
"-'.-
2o MhTlhS
-"
..
' -'
".
?"
\
?"?\
-
'
.
, ,
?
"
. - ?
"
,.
".-..
?
-,-, .
.. .
-,-:..
--..q,
-.::.
-..~d
....~L
.:-
,...-" --,
..r- . ..
-.-.. .--'-
Fig.
1.
Rome, S.
Clemente, lower basilica, late 4th or
early
5th
century,
reconstruction
(from
R. Krautheimer, Early
Christian and
Byzantine Architecture,
2nd
ed., Harmondsworth, 1975, Fig. 132).
V
o
Early
Christian
eleventh
century
twelfth century
Fig.
2. S. Clemente,
lower basilica,
south aisle wall, elevation
(drawing: Barclay Lloyd,
after Krautheimer, Corpus, I, Tav. xvIIi, 2).
Since the
19th-century
excavation of the lower basilica
by
Father
Joseph Mullooly, O.P.,
most scholars have concen-
trated on the
early history
of the site, leaving
aside the beauti-
ful medieval
upper
church.s
From their studies a reconstruc-
tion can be made of the lower basilica
(Fig. 1).
The church was
built into and above a
large
Roman
building,
and oversailed a
narrow
alleyway
and the remains of a Roman house;
it was
entered from the east and had its
sanctuary
in the west. In
plan
it was a basilica with a
nave,
two aisles,
and an
apse;
it was
preceded by
a
rectangular
colonnaded atrium, which, except
for its western
portico,
remains to be excavated. The church
was 35.95 m
long;
the nave was 15.34 m
wide,
the aisles
5.81 m and 5.31 m wide.
Eight
columns
separated
the nave
and
aisles;
four more columns stood in the
fagade.6
The colon-
nades
supported
arcades. The
clerestory, rising
to a
height
of
13.36
m,
was
pierced by large
round-headed windows.7
Along
both the north and south aisle walls there had
been,
in
the
pre-existing
Roman
building,
several wide
openings.
In
the
Early
Christian
building campaign
all save a
rectangular
window in the east end of the north aisle wall were blocked;
at
the same time in the south aisle wall the easternmost
opening
was filled in and the three closest to the west were made
narrower, leaving
a small
doorway
in the
east,
followed
by
5. For the
history
of the excavation,
see: L. E.
Boyle, O.P.,
San
Clemente
Miscellany I: the
community of
SS. Sisto e Clemente in
Rome,
1677-1977, Rome, 1977, 171ff., andJ. Mullooly,
O.P.,
Saint Clement
Pope
and
Martyr
and his basilica in
Rome, Rome, 1869,
2nd
ed., 1873.
Father
Mullooly's
discoveries were discussed in G. B. De Rossi, "Dati
cronologici
e storici circa i monumenti . . . di San Clemente,"
Bullettino di
Archeologia
Cristiana, III (1870),
141ff.,
and idem,
"I
monumenti
scoperti
sotto la basilica di San Clemente,"
Bullettino di
Archeologia,
2a Serie,
I
(1870),
125ff.
The
following
studies have been made of the
Early
Christian basil-
ica and its antecedent
buildings:
C. Cecchelli, San Clemente
(Le
Chiese
di Roma illustrate, 24-25),
Rome, 1930;
E.
Junyent,
"La
primitiva
basilica di San Clemente," Rivista di
Archeologia Cristiana,
5
(1928),
231ff.; idem, Il Titolo di San Clemente in Roma, Rome, 1932; R.
Krautheimer, Corpus
Basilicarum Christianarum Romae,
Vatican
City,
1937, I, 117ff.;
M. Cecchelli Trinci,
"Osservazioni sulla basilica
inferiore di S. Clemente in Roma,"
Rivista di
Archeologia Cristiana,
50
(1974), 93ff.;
and F. Guidobaldi,
"Il
complesso archeologico
di San
Clemente"
(with
a new
survey plan, Tav. v)
in L. E.
Boyle, O.P.,
E.M.C. Kane,
and F. Guidobaldi, San Clemente
Miscellany
II: Art and
Archeology,
ed. L.
Dempsey, O.P., Rome, 1978,
215ff.
6. This kind of
fapade opening
seems to have been common in
Early
Christian basilicas in Rome in the late 4th and
early
5th centur-
ies;
see G. Matthiae,
"Basiliche
paleocristiane
con
ingresso
a
polifora,"
Bollettino d'Arte,
42
(1957),
107ff.,
and R. Krautheimer, Early
Chris-
tian and
Byzantine Architecture, Harmondsworth,
2nd ed., 1975,
180ff.
and n. 8.
7. Krautheimer, Corpus, I,
132 and 129ff.
BARCLAY LLOYD: BUILDING HISTORY OF S. CLEMENTE, ROME 199
three others and a
large
window
(Fig. 2)."
This
Early Christian
basilica seems to have been built in the late 4th or
early 5th
century .9
The church of S. Clemente was renovated in the late 8th and
mid 9th centuries. The roof was restored
by Pope
Hadrian
I
(772-795)."o
Further
repairs
were undertaken
by Pope
Leo IV
(847-855), possibly following
an
earthquake
in Rome in Au-
gust
847." In this
campaign
a wall was built to block the
southernmost intercolumniation in the
fagade
(Fig. 3, n) and
the walls of the basilica were decorated with murals-one, of
the
Ascension,
on the inner face of the fagade blocking.12
The
building history
of S. Clemente in the 11th and 12th
centuries has been treated most
fully
in recent
years by Junyent
and
Boyle.13 Junyent
clarified the relation of the
upper
to the
lower
church,
discussed
epigraphic
and
documentary sources
connected with the medieval
rebuilding,
and described the
church as it stood in the
early
12th
century.
Father
Boyle,
in a
masterful study, disentangled some misunderstandings about
the medieval patron, Cardinal Anastasius, and pointed out
that a date of 1128 for the consecration of the church was
untenable, since the historical evidence for it was related to
another church of the same name in Tivoli. Other studies have
concentrated, not on the architectural
history of the church,
but on the later medieval murals in the lower basilica and on
the magnificent mosaic in the
12th-century apse and its sur-
rounding
arch.14
A few scholars have included the medieval
church of S. Clemente in more
general works on Rome in the
Middle
Ages.15
Despite all these studies, numerous
questions related to the
date and building history of the church in the late 11th and
early 12th centuries remain unresolved. In this paper a fresh
investigation will be made of the archaeological, literary, and
graphic evidence for this medieval
phase
at S. Clemente. We
hope
to
clarify
some
points,
or at least
suggest
some new
solutions in the
perplexing history of this
fascinating monu-
ment. We shall discuss first the
late-11th-century restoration
of the lower basilica, then the
building
of the
upper
church
by
Cardinal Anastasius; we shall consider the extent of his cam-
paign and
suggest what
might have been
completed by
"Petrus"; finally,
we shall
propose
an alternative date of con-
secration for the medieval church.
I. The
11th-century
restoration
of
the
Early
Christian basilica
From an examination of the
masonry,
it
appears
that the
late-11th-century
renovation of the
Early
Christian basilica
affected the southern side and
fagade
of the
building. Two
piers (Fig. 3,
p
and
q)
were built around columns in the south
colonnade; these
piers carry
the
11th-century
murals of Saint
Clement and Sisinnius and the Legend of Saint Alexis.16 One, or
possibly two, of the
openings in the south aisle wall were
blocked
up (Figs. 2, 3, v and
possibly o). The
fagade
arcade
was further filled in
(Fig. 3, r, s, and
possibly w);
the murals
8.
Ibid., 127.
9. Scholars
disagree
about its date or construction. On the basis of
a
fragmentary inscription,
De Rossi
assigned
it to the
pontificate
of
Pope
Siricius
(384-399),
De
Rossi,
"I
monumenti," 125ff.
Junyent
believed the
preceding
Roman
building
was transformed into a church
in two
phases, taking
its basilical
plan only
in
514-535; Junyent, II
Titolo,
153ff. Krautheimer dated it c. 390 or before
385; Krautheimer,
Corpus, I, 132-134. Guidobaldi
proposed that, after an initial
restructuring
of the earlier Roman
building,
it was transformed into a
basilica in the first half of the 5th
century; Guidobaldi, "Il
complesso
archeologico,"
296.
10. "Tectum vero tituli beati Clementis
quaejam
casuram erat et in
ruinis positum regionis
tertia a noviter
restauravit," Liber
Pontificalis,
I,
505.
Junyent,
II
Titolo, 161, assumed this restoration affected the
whole
building ("tutto l'edificio"),
but
Krautheimer,
Corpus, I,
118
n.
2, points
out that one should not overrate the extent of this
renovation.
11. The
earthquake
is described in the Liber
Pontificalis, II, 8:
"Huius
beati tempore praesulis
terremotus in urbe Rome
per
indicti-
onem factus est
X, ita ut omnia elementa concussa viderentur ab
omnibus."
Junyent, II
Titolo,
161 n. 3, first connected this
earthquake
with
Pope
Leo IV's work at S. Clemente.
12. The
early murals, from the 8th and 9th
centuries, have been
studied most
recently by J. Osborne, Early
Mediaeval
Wall-Paintings
in
the Lower Church
of
San
Clemente, Rome,
New
York, 1984; idem, "The
portrait
of
Pope
Leo IV in S. Clemente in
Rome
...
"
Papers of
the
British School at
Rome,
47
(1979), 58ff.; idem, "The
painting
of the
Anastasis in the lower church of S. Clemente .
..
," Byzantion,
51
(1981), 255ff.; idem, "Early
medieval
paintings
in San
Clemente,
Rome: the Madonna in the
niche," Gesta,
XX.2
(1981), 299ff.; idem,
"The
Christological
scenes in the nave of the lower church of San
Clemente, Rome," in D.
Andrews, J. Osborne, and D.
Whitehouse,
Medieval Lazio: Studies in Architecture
Painting
and
Ceramics,
Oxford
(BAR 125), 1982, 237ff., and
idem, "Early
medieval
wall-paintings
in
the church of San
Clemente, Rome: the Libertinus
cycle
and its
date,"
Journal of
the
Warburg
and Courtauld
Institutes,
45
(1982),
182ff.
13. E.
Junyent,
"La basilica
superior
del Titol de Sant
Clement,"
Analecta Sacra
Tarraconensia,
6
(1930), 251ff.; Junyent, II Titolo,
passim, esp. 186ff.; L. E.
Boyle, O.P.,
A short
guide
to St. Clement's
Rome, Rome, 1972; idem, "The date of consecration of the basilica of
San
Clemente," in
Boyle, Kane, and
Guidobaldi, San Clemente Miscel-
lany n,
1ff.
14. For the
11th-century
frescoes in the lower
church, see: G.
Ladner, "Die italienische Malerei im 11.
Jahrhundert," Jahrbuch
der
kunsthistorischen
Sammlungen
in
Wien, N.F.,
5
(1931), 63ff.; E. B.
Garrison, Studies in the
history of
medieval Italian
painting, Florence,
1953, I, 1ff.; H.
Toubert, "Rome et le
Mont-Cassin," Dumbarton Oaks
Papers, 30
(1976), 3ff.; and E.
Kane, "The
painted
decoration of the
church of San
Clemente," in
Boyle, Kane, and
Guidobaldi, San
Clemente
Miscellany
Ii,
60ff.,
esp.
80ff.
For the mosaics in the
upper
church see: S. Scaccia
Scarafoni, "I1
mosaico absidale di S. Clemente in
Roma," Bollettino
d'Arte, XXIX,
II (1935),
serie
III,
49ff.,
with a dubious
political interpretation;
H.
Toubert, "Le renouveau
paleochretien
a Rome au debut du
XIIe
siecle," Cahiers
Archeologiques,
20
(1970), 99ff.; and
Kane, "The
painted decoration," 99ff.
15. For
example,
R.
Krautheimer, Rome:
Profile of
a
City,
312-
1308, Princeton, 1980, 161, 163ff.
16. For these and other
murals, see the works cited in n. 14.
200
IL II
F II
II
X
4
4
I~I !E
II
,
ii
(28)t;-
(28)
* I
III
II
Ii
I
(1
2"
e
k
II II
I
CII
III
III
ItI
IL
,--. .
,I m ..I
S. CLEMENTE
PLAN AND RECONSTRUCTION
Medieval
repairs
to
Early
Christian
buildings
Fig.
3. S. Clemente, lower
basilica, plan
and reconstruction, medieval
repairs
to
Early
Christian
buildings (Barclay
Lloyd).
of the Translation
of
Saint
Clement/Cyril
and the Miracle at
Chersona were
painted
on our walls r and s.
Probably
at the
same time a wall was
built, running
northwards from the
north aisle wall
(Fig. 3, t).
The
11th-century blockings
in the
fapade,
the
piers
in the
south
colonnade,
and the wall
running
north of the church
(Fig. 3, p, q, r, s,
and
t)
are all built in a distinctive
type
of
brickwork. The
bricks,
all reused and c.
17,
22 /2 cm
long,
are
laid in
fairly straight
rows in
pale gray, finely
textured mortar,
which is smoothed over the bricks and marked with a hori-
zontal line made with the
tip
of the mason's
trowel-falsa
cortina
pointing.7
The mortarbeds are 3, 31/2,
or 4 cm
high;
and a modulus of five rows of bricks and five mortarbeds
measures
30, 301/2, 311/2,
or 32 cm.
As has been
pointed
out in a
separate study,
this
type
of
brickwork occurs in several other medieval structures in
Rome,
some of which can be
firmly dated."'
The earliest se-
curely
dated
example
of this
masonry
is to be found in the first
Romanesque rebuilding phase
at SS.
Quattro Coronati, c.
1099-before 1116.19 Since the
repairs
to the lower basilica of S.
Clemente are
generally
believed to
predate
that
campaign,
this
in not
very helpful.
Falsa cortina
pointing is, however, re-
corded as
early
as 1060 in the mortarbeds of a kind of
opus
listatum
(alternating
rows of stone and
bricks)
at the
abbey
of
Farfa.20 In Rome it
appears
at S.
Pudenziana,
in the
repointing
of an Ancient Roman
wall, perhaps
as
early
as
1073-1085,
and
it continued to be used until c. 1205.21 If the
early
date is
correct,
it would mean that the walls under discussion at S.
Clemente could have been built at
any
time from the
pontifi-
cate of
Gregory
VII
(1073-1085)
to the decision to rebuild the
church
by
Cardinal Anastasius
(c.
1099-c.
1125).
Falsa cortina
pointing
seems to have been the hallmark of
certain
groups
of masons in Rome in the late 11th and 12th
centuries;
it does not occur in all
buildings
of that date in the
city.22 Indeed,
the builders of the main
body
of the
upper
church of S. Clemente did not finish the mortarbeds in this
way.
Hence its occurrence in the lower basilica can
perhaps
be
used to determine the extent of the
late-11th-century
restora-
tion
campaign.
Besides the walls discussed so
far, falsa
cortina
pointing oc-
curs in a small
irregular blocking
in the south aisle wall (Figs.
2, 3, v),
which
may
have been a small
doorway.
The
masonry
of the
blocking
is
opus listatum, not brickwork, but the
falsa
cortina
pointing
is
very
clear. At
blocking
o in the same wall
there is similar
masonry,
but the
pointing
is less obvious and
may, indeed,
be the result of a modern
repair.
The mortar in
the other
blockings
of this wall is not treated this
way and
probably
dates from the time of Cardinal Anastasius's rebuild-
ing
of the church. In the
fapade
wall of the lower church there
may
have been a
late-11th-century blocking
at
point
w: a
19th-century pier
there has the
impression
of
falsa
cortina
pointing
in reverse
along
its mortarbeds.23 A few
fragments of
brickwork with
falsa
cortina
pointing
are scattered
among
the
stone foundations of the south colonnade of the
upper
church:
they may
be
part
of an
11th-century
wall that was demolished
at the time the foundations were built.
From the evidence that
survives, it
appears
that walls
p, q,
r, s, v, and
possibly
o and w were built to
strengthen
the
Early
Christian basilica in the late 11th
century;
a new wall t
may
have been built at the same time to connect the church to
structures on the
north.24 Most
of the
repairs
to the
Early
Christian basilica affected the
fapade
and south side of the
church. The
filling-in
of the
fapade
and the south aisle seems
fairly logical,
since it was unusual in the Middle
Ages
to have
so
many openings along
those sides of a
church,
but the
piers
in the south colonnade
suggest
that this
part
of the structure
was
damaged
or unstable.
(Three
columns are now
missing
from this
colonnade,
as well as one in the north
colonnade,
but
these
may
have been
remoyed
when the church was
rebuilt.)
It is
generally
assumed that the
11th-century
restoration of
the lower basilica was connected to broader historical circum-
stances. In the late 11th
century
the titular cardinals of S.
Clemente
appear
to have taken sides in the issues raised
by
the
Gregorian
Reform of the
Church.25
In 1073 a
synod
in Rome
condemned
Hugo,
Cardinal of S.
Clemente,
for
supporting
17. For
my
use of the term
'"falsa
cortina
pointing," seeJ.
E.
Barclay
Lloyd, "Masonry techniques
in medieval
Rome, c. 1080-c.
1300,"
Papers of
the British School at
Rome,
53
(1985), 225ff., esp.
227.
18.
Barclay Lloyd, "Masonry techniques,"
237ff. and Tab.
III,
269ff.
19.
Ibid., 228, 237ff., 245, 269.
20. C.
McClendon, "The medieval
abbey
church at
Farfa," Ph.D.
diss.,
New York
University, 1978, 67, 89, Figs. 70, a,
b for
falsa
cortina
pointing; 32, 105ff. for the
11th-century
date.
21.
238.
22.
Ibid., 225ff., esp.
237ff.
23. This was
pointed
out to me
by
Dott. F. Guidobaldi.
Probably
.he
19th-century pier
was built
against
an
11th-century blocking,
which was
subsequently
removed to allow
easy
access to other
parts
of the excavations; no doubt, if this were the case, the 11th-
century
wall was considered
unimportant
because it carried no
painted
decoration.
24. Wall t is accessible
through
a hole under the
present postcard
room; its
masonry
is similar to that of
p, q, r, and s.
25. For the
Gregorian Reform, see: A.
Fliche,
La
Reforme Gregori-
enne, Paris, 1924-1966; idem, La
Reforme Gregorienne
et la
Reconquete
chretienne
(1057-1123),
Histoire de
l'Eglise,
ed. A. Fliche and V.
Martin,
Paris, 1950,
III;
and R.
Morghen, Gregorio VII e la
Riforma
della Chiesa
nel secolo
XI,
revised
ed., Palermo, 1974. The effect on the
city
of
Rome of this reform movement is
briefly
discussed in
Krautheimer,
Rome, 148ff.
202
Cadolus
against Pope Gregory VII;26 although
he was de-
nounced,
the Cardinal was
evidently
not
deposed,
for on 24
June
1080
"Hugo Candidus," probably
the same
man, signed
a document as titular of the church.27
Pope Gregory
VII subse-
quently
consecrated as S. Clemente's cardinal a
pro-Gregorian
monk, Rainerius,
who was renowned for his
dignity, integ-
rity,
natural
ability,
and
prudence.28
Toward the end of
Gregory
VII's life,
in
1084,
the
Pope
was
besieged
in Castel
Sant'Angelo by imperial troops,
who had
taken Rome and installed an
imperial anti-pope,
Clement III
(Wibertus
of
Ravenna),
in his stead. The Normans from
southern
Italy,
led
by
the Prince of
Salerno,
Robert Guiscard,
came to
Gregory's
rescue. In one
account,
the Norman
army
is said to have entered Rome
through
the Porta Flaminia
(Porta
del
Popolo)
and inflicted
grave damage
on the
neigh-
borhood around S. Silvestro in
Capite
and S. Lorenzo in
Lucina. From there the
troops
made their
way
to Castel
Sant'Angelo,
where
they
took
Gregory
under their
protection
and escorted him back to the
Lateran, but not without
outbreaks of
violence, looting,
and
rape
on the
way. Finally,
the areas around the Lateran and Colosseum were set
alight.29
Another version describes a fire between the Lateran and the
Colosseum,
as the Normans entered the
city.30
In some
points
the two accounts are
contradictory:
the first
says
Guiscard
entered Rome
through
Porta
Flaminia,
the second
gives
the
impression
that he came into the
city
near the Lateran.
Both,
however,
describe a fire in the Lateran-Colosseum
neighbor-
hood,
where S. Clemente is
situated;
the extent of the
damage
this caused is not clear.
The
nearby
church of SS.
Quattro
Coronati seems to have
been
destroyed,
a fact confirmed
by
the vast
quantity
of
charred marble that came to
light
when the church and monas-
tery
were restored at the
beginning
of this
century."3 Pope
Paschal
II (1099-1118) began rebuilding
that church on a
large
scale c.
1099,
but later constructed a smaller
church,
which he
consecrated on 20
January 1116.32
The reason for the
11th-century
restoration of the lower
basilica of S. Clemente and its date have been the
subject
of
scholarly
debate. Father
Mullooly
believed that the lower
church was abandoned after Guiscard's devastation of the
Lateran
area;33
he believed that the
piers
in the south colonnade
and in the
fagade
wall were built before the disaster of 1084.
G. B. De
Rossi, on the other
hand, thought
the medieval
rebuilding
of the
Early
Christian church had been caused
by
the basilica's
great age
and the mass of debris
piled up
around
it.34 J. Wilpert thought
the church was
merely damaged
in
1084 and hence
required strengthening piers
in its south colon-
nade and
fapade;
he dated these
piers shortly
after 1084 and
prior
to the
rebuilding
of the church on a
higher
level in the
early
12th
century.35
Most modern scholars follow this last
interpretation.
It must be
admitted, however,
that there are no
traces
of a fire in the lower basilica. De Rossi's
hypothesis
could well be correct. It is also
possible
that the church was
damaged by
an
earthquake
or some other natural disaster. D.
Kinney
has found reference to a severe
earthquake
in Rome in
1091, which she thinks
may
have been
strong enough
to cause
the
rebuilding
of S.
Crisogono
and S. Maria in Trastevere
early
in the 12th
century.36
Such an
earthquake might
have led
to the restoration of the lower church of S. Clemente.
By
1099 the church seems to have been in
good enough
repair
for a
papal
election to be held there on 14
August,
at
which S. Clemente's titular
cardinal, Rainerius,
was elected
pope;
he took the name Paschal II. This event is described in
great
detail in the Liber
Pontificalis.37
A
large
number of
people
gathered
in the
basilica.38
The new
Pope
was elected and ac-
26.
". .. Ugonem
cardinalem tituli sancti
Clementis . . . ab
apolostica
sede
dampnatum,
eo
quod aspirator
et sotius factus haeresis
Cadoli
Parmensis
episcopi,
similiter
usque
ad
satisfactionem anathe-
mate
percussit";
Liber
Pontificalis, II, 284.
27.
"Ego Hugo
Candidus sanctae romanae Ecclesiae
presbyter
cardinalis,
de titulo sancti Clementis
regionis tertiae Urbis," quoted
in
Junyent,
Il
Titolo, 16, from I. M.
Watterich, Pontificum
Romanum
Vitae, Leipzig, 1862, I, 442. It seems
unlikely
to me that there was
more than one cardinal of S. Clemente called
Hugo
in the
years
1078-
1080.
28. Liber
29.
(Robert Guiscard)
". . . aditum
namque per portam
Flammi-
neam habuit. . . . Immo
ipse
cum suis totam
regionem
illam in
qua
aecclesiae sancti Silvestri et Sancti Laurentii in Lucina site sunt
penitus
destruxit et fere a
nichilum
redegit:
dehinc ivit ad castrum sancti
Angeli,
domnum
papam
de eo abtraxit
secumque
Lateranum deduxit
omnesque
Romanos
depraedari coepit
et
expoliare, atque, quod
iniuriosum
est
nuntiare, mulieres
deshonestare, regiones illas circa
Lateranum et Coloseum
positas igne comburere"; Liber
Pontificalis,
Iu,
291.
30. Cardinal
Boson, following
the Liber ad Amicum of Bonizo de
Sutri
(c. 1086), says, ". ..
in
ingressu ipsius
civitatis
regionem
Lateranensem
usque
ad Coloseum ferro et flamma combussit
.. ."
Liber
31.
".
. . ecclesiam sanctorum
Quatuor
Coronatorum
quae
tem-
pore Roberti Guiscardi
Salernitani principis
destructa erat . .
."; Liber
Pontificalis, II, 305. For the
20th-century restoration,
A.
Mufioz,
Il
restauro della chiesa e del chiostro dei SS.
Quattro Coronati, Rome, 1914,
esp.
4 n. 3.
32. For documentation of these two
campaigns
at
SS. Quattro
Coronati, see
Krautheimer, Corpus, Iv,
3ff.
33.
Mullooly,
Saint Clement
Pope
and
Martyr,
2nd
ed., 184ff., 255.
34. De
Rossi,
"I
monumenti," 129ff.
35.
J. Wilpert,
"Le
pitture
della basilica
primitiva
di S.
Clemente,"
Melanges d'Archeologie
et
d'Histoire,
26
(1906),
251ff.
36. D.
Kinney,
"S. Maria in Trastevere from its
founding
to
1215,"
Ph.D.
diss.,
New York
University, 1975, 195ff.
37. Liber
Pontificalis, II, 296; see also
Boyle,
"The date of consecra-
tion," 5.
38.
"Sollempnis
memoriae domno Urbano
Papa defuncto, ecclesia
quae
erat in Urbe
pastorem
sibi
dari expetit.
Ob hoc
patres
cardinales
et
episcopi, diaconi primoresque Urbi, primoscrinii
et scribae
region-
arii in ecclesia sancti Clementis
conveniunt
.. .";
Liber
Pontificalis, II,
296.
claiined by
the
people
of
Rome,
the
clergy,
and the
hierarchy;
contemporaries
attributed the choice to divine
providence
and
claimed that Saint Peter had ratified
it."9
A scarlet cloak was
placed
on the new
pontiff's
shoulders and he was escorted to
the
Lateran;
there he was enthroned in the basilica and took
possession
of the
papal palace.
The
many
details of
papal
cere-
monial
given
in this account are
significant
in the
light
of the
Gregorian
Reform
party's
demands for
papal
elections free
from
imperial
interference.
Perhaps
that was
why
the election
was held in a
pro-Gregorian
cardinal's
church; perhaps
the
hierarchy
even intended to elect
Rainerius;
the
proximity
of S.
Clemente to the Lateran would ensure a swift enthronement
of the new
pope.
The
emperor
would be
presented
with a
fait
accompli
difficult to reverse.
The
description
of Paschal's election does not
say anything
specific
about the state of the church of S.
Clemente,
but it
must have been in
fairly good repair
to receive the
hierarchy,
clergy,
and
people
of Rome.
Pope
Paschal II's election was
probably
the last
noteworthy
event to take
place
in the lower
basilica.
Since Paschal II
diligently
set about
restoring
and
rebuilding
the
nearby
church of SS.
Quattro
Coronati
shortly
after he
became
pope,
it is
generally
assumed that he
was,
as Cardinal
Rainerius, responsible
for the
late-11th-century building
cam-
paign
at S. Clemente.
Further,
since four of the walls built in
that
campaign
were decorated with
murals,
it seems
likely
that
they
were set
up
some time before the church was
entirely
rebuilt. The
masonry
of these walls
suggests
a date as
early
as
the
pontificate
of
Pope Gregory
VII
(1073-1085);
Rainerius
was
appointed
titular cardinal of S. Clemente
by Gregory
shortly
after 1080. Whatever the reason for the
renovation--
the
great age
of the
basilica, Robert Guiscard's
damage
to the
Lateran and Colosseum
area,
or a natural disaster like an earth-
quake-the campaign probably
took
place
in the
period
c. 1080-c. 1099.
II. The
rebuilding of
the church
by
Cardinal Anastasius
Some time after 1099 the church of S. Clemente was en-
tirely
rebuilt on a
higher
level and to a smaller scale
by
Cardi-
nal Anastasius. Until
recently,
one of the
problems
surround-
ing
this
campaign
was that two cardinals of that name were
believed to have held the church of S. Clemente in the first
quarter
of the 12th
century. Ciacconius, Rondinini, and oth-
ers, including Junyent, ascribed the medieval
rebuilding
of the
church to the second cardinal of that
name.40 Subsequently,
Father Leonard
Boyle, O.P., was able to show that there was
only
one Anastasius, who was cardinal
presbyter
of S. Cle-
mente in the
early
12th
century.41 Shortly
after Paschal II's
election in
August
1099 the name Anastasius
appears
as cardi-
nal of the church in documents and
inscriptions:
in March
1102 he
signed
a
document;
his last
appearance
is on a
diploma
of
May 1125; by
March 1126 a certain Ubertus
began
to
sign
as titular of S. Clemente, by
which time Cardinal Anastasius
presumably
had died. What confused
Ciacconius, Rondinini,
and others was that two other names, Arnaldus and Panurius,
also
appear
as cardinals of S. Clemente in documents dated
1105 and 1108, respectively.
It has been shown, however, that
these two documents are
spurious,
as is the
designation
of the
titular of S. Clemente as "cardinal deacon" rather than "cardi-
nal
presbyter,"
the correct
title.42
Consequently,
we
may
safely
assume that there was
only
one Cardinal
Anastasius,
who was titular of S. Clemente from between 1099 and 1102
until 1125-1126.
In his
studies,
Junyent
discussed the
epigraphic
evidence for
the construction of the
upper church.43
The last dated
inscrip-
tion in the lower basilica records a burial there in 1059.44 It
provides
a terminus
post quem,
if rather an
early one,
for the
construction of the medieval church.
Two
inscriptions
refer to the
rebuilding
of S. Clemente
by
Cardinal Anastasius.
One,
carved on the back of the
episcopal
throne in the
apse,
still exists. It
proclaims:
ANASTASIUS PRESBYTER CARDINALIS HUIUS TITULI
HOC OPUS CEPIT ET
PERFECIT,
that
is,
Cardinal Anastasius
"began
and finished this work."
The "work" referred to
may
be the
rebuilding
of the
church,
its
decoration,
its
liturgical furniture,
or
just
the throne. Even
if
only
the last is
meant,
it would still
provide
a terminus ante
quem
for the
12th-century rebuilding campaign,
since the
epis-
copal
throne would
only
have been installed when the church
was
already standing.45
The other
inscription,
from the tomb
39. "'Ecce te in
pastorem
sibi dari expetit populus Urbis, te
elegit
clerus, te collaudunt
patres, denique
in te solo totius
quievit ex-
aminatio. Divinitus ista
proveniunt,
divinitus hic
congregati
in no-
mine Domini te ad summi
pontificatus apicem
et
eligimus
et confir-
mamus . . . Paschalem
papam
sanctus Petrus
eligit!'";
Liber
40. A. Ciacconius, O.P., Vitae et Gestae Summorum
Pontificum . ..
necnon S. R. E.
Cardinalium, Rome, 1601,
365:xIv,
and 366:
xxxvIll;
P. Rondinini, De S. Clemente
papa
et
martyre
et
ejusque
basilica in urbe
Roma, Rome, 1706, 344ff.; Junyent, II Titolo, 187ff.
41.
Boyle,
"The date of consecration," 1ff.
42.
Ibid.,
2ff.
43.
Junyent,
"La basilica
superior," 252ff.; Junyent,
II Titolo,
186ff.
44.
Junyent,
"La basilica
superior," 252ff.; Junvent, II Titolo, 187.
45.
Junyent,
"La basilica
superior," 253; Junyent, II Titolo,
187.
For
papal
or
episcopal
thrones in
12th-century
churches in
Rome, see
F.
Gandolfo, "Riempiego
di sculture antiche nei troni papali
del XII
secolo," Rendiconti-Atti della
Pontificia
Accademia Romana di Archeolo-
gia,
Serie
in,
47
(1976), 203ff., esp.
207ff.
204
of Cardinal
Anastasius,
which was
formerly
at S.
Clemente,
no
longer exists,
but is known from a
16-century transcription
published by Rondinini
in
1706.46
De Rossi made two emen-
dations in
1870.47 Junyent published
De Rossi's version.48 It
reads:
dudum IS SANCTE PATER CLEMENS TUA TEMPLA NOVAVIT
CUIUS IN HOC TUMULO PULVIS ET UMBRA IACENT
MORIBUS EGREGIUS ET VITA PRESBYTER URBIS
FULSIT ANASTASIUS NOMINE DICTUS ERAT
VITA DECENS
STUDIUMQ. PIUM VIS RELIGIONIS
CONSPICUUM MERITIS EFFICIEBAT EUM
HUNC
QUICUMQ.
LEGIS TUMULUM MEMOR ESTO
LEGENDO
DICERE NATE DEI SUBSIDIERIS EI.49
Onofrio
Panvinio in the 16th
century
recorded
seeing
at S.
Clemente the tomb of Cardinal
Anastasius, who,
he
wrote,
had rebuilt the church from its
foundations; probably
he based
that statement on the two
inscriptions,
on the
episcopal
throne,
and on the
tomb."5
Although
the two Anastasius
inscriptions imply
that the
Cardinal
brought
the work of
rebuilding
S. Clemente to com-
pletion,
another
inscription suggests
that the
upper
church
was finished after his death
by
a man named
Petrus.5
This
inscription
was found in two
fragments
in the area of Rome
between Via Arenula and Piazza Cenci. Gatti
completed
it
and,
even if his
interpretation
is
mistaken, enough
remains of
the
original strongly
to
suggest
that Cardinal
Anastasius,
who
had
begun
to rebuild S.
Clemente,
entrusted the conclusion of
his work to Petrus. As
completed by Gatti,
it reads:
HOC PETRUS TUM[ulo cla]UDITUR
IN DOMINO
CEPIT ANASTASI[us
que ce]RNIS
TEMPLA CLEMENTIS
ET MORIENS CURA[m detuli]D HUIC OPERIS.
QUE QUIA
FINIVIT P[ost vite fjUNERA VIVIT,
CUI DUM VIVEBA[t subdit]US ORBIS ERAT.
POST MORTEM
CA[rnis dabit]UR
TIBI GLORIA CARNIS
SANCTIS IUDICIO
V[ivifica]NTE DEO.
With this
epigraphic
evidence in mind it is
important
to re-
examine the fabric of the
upper church,
to see how it relates to
the lower
basilica,
to reconstruct its
appearance
in the
early
12th
century,
and to seek evidence of more than one
building
phase.
In other
words,
one needs to determine the extent of
building campaign
and
suggest
what he
may
have left undone for Petrus to
complete.
Junyent
and Krautheimer have
explained
how the medieval
upper
church is related to its
Early
Christian
predecessor (Figs.
4, 5):52
the
apse,
still in the
west,
has a smaller
radius,
but the
length
of the
building
remains
approximately
the
same;
the
south aisle wall is built on
top
of its lower
counterpart;
the
south colonnade stands on its
Early
Christian
predecessor;
the
north
aisle
wall rests on the
Early
Christian north
colonnade;
the
upper
north colonnade stands on a new medieval founda-
tion built inside the
Early
Christian nave. The medieval
church, built c. 4.37 m above the
Early Christian basilica53-
its floor is at
roughly
the
height
of the
capitals
in the lower
church's nave colonnades-is narrower than its
predecessor
by
the width of one
aisle;
its south
aisle, following
the
Early
Christian
proportions,
is wider that the medieval north
aisle;
its nave is narrower than its lower
counterpart.
Needless to
say, in preparing
the foundations of the
upper
church,
all
remaining openings
in the lower walls and colon-
nades were blocked
(see Fig. 3);
a smaller
apse
was laid out
within
the old one
(see Fig. 4);
an
entirely
new foundation for
the north colonnade of the
upper
church was built within the
nave of the lower
basilica.54
In
addition,
a small
apsed chapel
was
planned
north of the
12th-century apse; and,
in the south-
ern corner of the old
narthex,
a vault was constructed.
The
12th-century
foundations are
mostly
built of a kind of
medieval
opus caementicium,
with
irregular
blocks of stone in
fairly straight rows;
sometimes this has above it a few courses
of
opus
listatum
(blocks
of tufa
alternating
with
two, three,
or
four rows of
bricks) (Fig. 6).
In the old south aisle wall all the
remaining openings
were closed in medieval
opus
listatum of
this
type, except
for the westernmost
one,
which was blocked
with opus caementicium (see Fig. 2).
In the walls
certainly per-
taining
to this
rebuilding
of the church the mortarbeds are not
46.
Rondinini,
De S.
Clemente,
321. Rondinini took his version of
the
inscription
from Ciacconius.
47. He added "dudum" at the
beginning
and
changed
"NOTAVIT" at the end of the first line to
"NOVAVIT";
De
Rossi,
"Dati
cronologici," 141ff.
48.
Junyent,
"La basilica
superior," 253; Junyent, II Titolo,
188.
49. The
inscription
refers to the church
("TUA TEMPLA")
in the
plural.
This
expression
occurs
frequently
in
Early
Christian
inscrip-
tions as a
plurale
tantum
(cf.
E.
Diehl, Inscriptiones
Latinae Christianae
Veteres, Berlin, 1925-1931, index, p. 412)
and should be taken to refer
here to a
single church, the
upper
medieval basilica.
50.
(Cardinal Anastasius)
". . . huius
sepulchrum
adhuc extat in
basilica S. Clementis, quam
a fundamentis
refecit";
O.
Panvinio,
Epitome Pontificum
Romanorum a S. Petro
usque
ad Paulum
III, Venice,
1577,
82.
51. G. Gatti,
"Di un nuovo monumento
epigrafico
relativo alla
basilica di S. Clemente,"
Bullettino della Commissione
archeologico
comunale,
XVII
(1889), 467ff.; Junyent,
"La basilica
superior," 254;
Junyent, II Titolo,
188. Gatti
suggested
that the "Petrus" in the in-
scription
was Cardinal Petrus Pisanus.
52.
Junyent, II Titolo, 190ff.; Krautheimer, Corpus, I, 117ff.
53. This measurement was taken
by myself
and
J.
M. Blake in the
narthex of the lower
church;
the nave of the
Early
Christian
basilica
is
now 4.50
m,
the aisles 4.75-4.80 m below the
pavement
of the
upper
church.
54. For
these
medieval walls built in the lower church in
prepara-
tion for the
rebuilding,
see the fine
survey plan published by
Guido-
baldi. "I1 complesso archeologico," Tav. v.
marked
withfalsa
cortina
pointing;
as noted
above, this charac-
teristic seems to
distinguish
them from the earlier late-11th-
century repairs
to the
Early
Christian basilica. The vault in the
southernmost
bay
of the lower narthex bears the
imprint
of
woven
matting,
a common feature of
vaulting
in Rome in the
12th and 13th
centuries, when,
apparently,
straw mats were
placed
on the
centering
when vaults were
constructed.5
Finally,
the old basilica was filled with rubble and dirt and
eventually
a new
"Cosmatesque" opus
sectile
pavement
was
laid on
top.56 Clearly,
the
Early
Christian church determined
many
features of the new
plan (Figs. 7, 8): orientation,
length,
basilical
layout. Similarly,
in the new construction earlier
walls were
readily utilized,
as foundations and
higher up.
The
north wall of the medieval church is
Early
Christian to a
height
of c. 8.61 m above the medieval
pavement (see Fig. 5,
wall
4);
the
facade
wall of the lower
church, too,
was
incorpo-
rated in the medieval
fabric."7
Yet,
the medieval
plan
also
differed from its
Early
Christian
predecessor:
the new church
was
narrower,
in the nave and north aisle
(see Figs. 4, 5);
the
radius of the
apse
was
smaller;
the colonnades were inter-
rupted by piers (Fig. 7).
It is
clear, too,
that the medieval
plan
was modified
during
construction: the
apsed chapel
north of
the main
apse
was not built
(Fig. 8, A);
the vault in the lower
narthex
may
have been
part
of an unfinished
project, perhaps
55. This
example
at S.
Clemente, c. 1099-c.
1125, is the earliest
instance of this
building technique
known to me. Similar vaults with
the
imprint
of woven
matting
occur in the cellars of the S. Clemente
canonry, probably
built at the same
time;
in the conventual
buildings
beside S. Maria in Cosmedin
(the
church was restructured in 1123 and
the vaulted
parts
of the
canonry
in successive
phases
in the 12th and
13th
centuries;
G. B.
Giovenale,
La basilica di S. Maria in
Cosmedin,
Rome, 1927, 406ff., surveyed
these
buildings,
but in
my opinion
his
interpretation
of them needs
revision);
in the
monastery
of SS.
Vincenzo e Anastasio alle Tre
Fontane,
in
parts
of the
building prob-
ably
erected
shortly
after 1140 and before 1220
(I
am at
present prepar-
ing
an architectural
history
of this
monastery, surveyed by myself
and
J.
M. Blake in
1983);
in the cloister and cellars of the
monastery
at
S. Lorenzo
f.l.m.,
1187-1191
(Krautheimer, Corpus, II,
13ff.; the
building
was
surveyed by
Mr. Blake and
myself
in
1984);
in the bell
tower at S. Sabina
(examined during
a
survey
of that monastic com-
plex
in 1982: from its
masonry
I would date this tower to the 12th not
the 10th
century; also,
I believe it was built as a
campanile,
not as a
defensive
tower, cf. F.
Darsy, O. P., Santa Sabina [Le Chiese di Roma
Illustrate, 63-64], Rome, 1961, 25, 30, 115);
in two bell towers in the
transept
of the Lateran basilica
(the transept
was built in
1291, the
towers
presumably
a little
later, since
they
stand
against
its
pre-exist-
ing walls; Krautheimer,
Corpus, v, 12, 19ff.);
and an undated instance
in the medieval
wings
of the Vatican Palace
(examined
in
1984).
Thus
the use of woven
matting
in the construction of vaults seems to have
been common in Rome from c. 1099-c. 1300.
56. For the
pavement
of the medieval
church,
D.
Glass, Studies in
Cosmatesque Pavements,
Oxford
(BAR S82), 1980, 83ff. One of the
problems
in
excavating
the lower church was
evidently
the lack of
support given
to the medieval
pavement,
once the rubble and dirt
were removed. The
upper
church had to be reinforced with 19th-
century piers
and vaults.
57.
Krautheimer,
Corpus, I, 132, 130.
o
0
0
a
SD
~O
I 1
0D
'Q Dg
Fig.
4. S.
Clemente, plan
of
upper
church related to
plan
of lower
basilica
(from Junyent, II Titolo, Fig. 54).
206
%c
South
1isle 14.46 N
e
!
e oi l
l
T
i ll
R26 o
ra
a
ic
I2
I.we'r
Churc.h
M1E Brickwork, late
fourth
centurv
South
aisle Nave
VIE -Opus
eacmenticium-,
twelfth
Na Norh a.isle1century foundations Tufa fill
X Brickwork. twelfth
century
XIIIM Rubbler masonry.
fifteenth centurv
S. CLEMENTE
x iIlh
Lower
and upper churches
and conventual Iniklings
SECTION AA'
Fig.
5. S. Clemente,
section
through upper
and lower basilicas and conventual buildings (Barclay Lloyd and Blake survey, Section AA1).
. ".
no,
.. .....
.. .
. - ..
W.. 1: 1
... - . IM.,
Or. eAl
ad
.:b4
.
1z,
dw?
Wla W.
.;9"w
C A?,.:, N;'
Ow
wr?
Fig.
6.
Rome, S.
Clemente, upper church,
c. 1099-c. 1125, founda-
tions of north aisle in north colonnade of lower basilica
(Barclay
Lloyd).
for a bell
tower,
later to be built in the eastern corner of the
north aisle
(Fig. 8, B).
Despite
the addition of later
chapels
and an
early-18th-cen-
tury
renovation of the
interior,58
the medieval
upper
church in
large part
survives
(Figs. 7, 9, 10).
It is a
basilica, facing east,
with a
nave,
two
aisles,
and an
apse;
in front is an
atrium,
whose eastern
wing
forms a kind of double-storied
gatehouse
(Fig. 11),
entered
through
a
porch
or
prothyron (Fig. 12).
The
church is 36.51 m
long
and 21.69 m
wide;
the south aisle is
5.73 m
wide,
the north aisle 3.74 m
wide;
the diameter of the
apse
is 8.46 m. The nave is
separated
from the aisles
by
colon-
nades
interrupted by
central
piers;
in each colonnade four col-
umns stand between the central
pier
and the
tongue piers
at
either end of the nave.59 The columns are 0.60 m in
diameter;
the intercolumniations are 2.60-2.65
m;
the
tongue piers
are
1.45-1.49 m and the central
piers
2.555 m
long.
The basilica's
main door is in its eastern facade.
A doorframe in the east wall
58. The
chapels
of Saint Catherine, the
Holy Rosary,
Saint
John
the
Baptist,
Saint
Cyril,
and Saint Dominic are all
postmedieval;
the
church was restored in 1702-1715
by
Carlo Stefano Fontana, at the
behest of
Pope
Clement XI
(1700-1721); Junyent,
II
Titolo,
218ff.
59. The easternmost columns and
tongue piers
are
clearly visible,
despite
the walls built to
separate
the
chapels
of Saint Catherine and
Saint Dominic from the nave.
Via dei Normanni
Roaryr
a hie I
m
IIIrnl
Ra
Pmbytery
E C1. r~r6rs II I i tar1.195I
r.
S
S-
Garden I
2
C
10 L C
ri
E
Choir hape
Q3
11-
0~~4 fB 12F(5
e2.o0
WING C
(4)
WIDNG(30)
D2(6)
(0
0.225 (13S) Coffee Room
O
0.225
O 0.00
20
(2) (3)
11 (28)IM
15?
1
Storeom 1
~A'
A
O
6 14
Shop 000
(00) (1)
(3
D0um: 0.00 0oi 0lom Refectory
Kitchen
0., 2.02 2.02
S7 150
Sm
(29)
HIT, WING A
(34)
,
Catherine's
Chapel 8
LD
st. ~Refectory l
SI.DominicVestibuleD
Ch~pcl2.02
(16)
[Ex aviti
(8)
Narthex
x
(7)
Celal r
aT i07) -1.00
21 22 23 24
25
31 ..
)(32)
C.__
I
34a. 2.31
0336GardardeIl
218
((26
028
ca.4 5 1
2..51,
355
(2)
22
36
3lll Tufa fillr
I
Hri,'k....k. A,,,i ....
IV
Hri,'k....k.sixth .........y
11
()l ...
listat
........lft,, c......y
XII
OIu ........in.....um fatced ,ith Ibrik,'
seq.on halt thirAeenth .cetury
II
m
Brikwrk
...k
tout
....h
r fifth
.........y
V
B- rik....k.ni,,th ........y ....
An
ci
....
X
Bri,'kwork,
....lfth
.......y XIV
Rubble
........y. si........h " ........
(?!) Ill
Blri.k-work.
Int
....th ...
I
.......
\!l
Brickwrkr w1ih
a.
.....
ia
Ioi,,ting,
XI
Bri,-kwork.
first
haltf
thirt
....th c- .....y
S. CLEMENTE
Medieval Church and Conventual Buildings
PLAN I
Fig.
7. S. Clemente, upper
church and conventual
buildings, plan (Barclay Lloyd
and Blake
survey, plan I).
208
I
(23)
II
I L
t
i
S
'
-,
planned only
SCardinal
Anastasius
uncertain or later
\ N
I 1)
-I
(5)
II
0--I
/
0
i17,
Ii
'
L--
------
Fig.
8. S. Clemente, upper church, plan
and reconstruction
(Barclay Lloyd).
....................
e'll
:i
iT
. ..
.AN
.............
NX . ...
cr,
51-
.-.- ;Ml
Fig.
9. S.
Clemente, upper church, view of interior
today (Barclay
Lloyd).
of St. Catherine's
chapel,
with two
stylized peacocks
carved
on its
lintel, may
survive from a
subsidiary
side entrance to the
church,
which was later blocked.60
All
rising
walls of the medieval
church, except
the north
aisle
wall,
which is
Early Christian,
and
parts
of the
facade,
which I have been unable to
examine,
are built of the same
kind of
masonry (see Figs. 5, 7).61 This is
good-quality
medi-
fil
i i ::ii:
:iii::! !!! !!!!!! !iil
:
i ii i l so.
iii-: iiiiii!
iiiii li!i!~i~
ii i:;iiiiiiiiil
:i -ii!!!!i~!i
%-
i -i
..
i~iiiiiiiii
Fig.
10.
Ciampini,
interior view of S.
Clemente, 1690
(G.
Ciam-
pini,
Vetera
monimenta, Rome, I, 1690, Tab.
viii).
eval
brickwork,
with re-used bricks 12, 151/2, 19, 221/2 cm
long, neatly
laid in
straight
rows with mortarbeds 2 /2-3 /2 cm
high.
The mortar is
finely
textured and on interior walls it still
has a
pale gray finish;
there is no
falsa
cortina
pointing, except
occasionally
between voussoirs. A modulus of five rows of
bricks and five mortarbeds measures
28/2, 29, 30, 31, or 31 /2
cm;
it is
usually
close to 30 cm.
In elevation the church has a
steep
and narrow nave. The
colonnades
carry
arcades and
high clerestory walls, now
pierced by
three
rectangular
windows on either
side,
but traces
of earlier blocked windows are visible on the exterior
(Fig.
13).
The columns all have ancient Roman
shafts,
fluted or
unfluted,
and are of different materials: Proconnesian marble,
cipollino, granite,
and
gray-veined
marble.
(Their disposition
is charted in Table
I,
where the numbers
correspond
to those
on our
survey plan, Fig. 7.) Despite
the
variety
in
type
and
material,
it seems that the columns were
placed
in careful
order:
in five cases out of
eight,
identical shafts match each
other across the nave
and,
in the
remaining three, columns of
60.
Junyent
believed there were three medieval
doorways
into the
church in the
fagade
wall,
one
giving
access to the nave and one to
each aisle
(Junyent,
II
Titolo,
196 and
Fig. 55),
but I have found
only
the central one into the nave and
possibly
a second one in the south
aisle in the east wall of the
chapel
of Saint Catherine. At
present
the
latter
cuts into the fresco of the
Crucifixion
on that
wall,
indicating
that it was blocked before the fresco was
painted
in the 15th
century,
or that it was
opened
after the fresco had been
made; the
jambs
of the
doorframe at
present begin fairly high up.
Not
enough
is visible of the
wall at this
point
to
clarify
whether this doorframe
belongs
to the
original plan
of the medieval church. The
present
entrance in the south
aisle was
opened
in
1716;
it
replaced
one farther
west, opened
in 1590
by
Cardinal
Vincenzo Laureo; Junyent,
II
Titolo, 21, 221.
61. The
fagade
is
mostly
covered with
plaster.
So is the south aisle
wall,
but I was able to examine the
masonry
of that
during
the recent
restoration
campaign,
when the
plaster
was
temporarily
removed in
January
1984.
210
4,
4ii li:;
-g?4ia.i: i?!! ;di?-
:::-:::;::::i
;
?:ii~
Fig. 11.
S.
Clemente, upper church, gatehouse
from west
(Barclay
Lloyd).
the same material or color are
paired.62
Smooth columns of
white, gray,
or
greenish
marble stand east of the central
piers;
west of the
piers
smooth
granite
shafts alternate with fluted
columns of white Proconnesian
marble,
concentrating
the
more
precious
columns close to the
high
altar. Almost all the
shafts stand on ancient
bases,
Ionic or
Attic;
four are now
covered
by
the
pavement,
one is medieval.
Capitals
are now
all
Ionic,
molded in
18th-century
stucco. Prior to the 1715
restoration the
capitals
were described as "re-used and of dif-
ferent orders."" Since most are
low,
it is
likely
that most were
Ionic,
of ancient or medieval
manufacture;
the two columns
closest the
high
altar have
higher capitals
than the
rest-per-
haps they
were Corinthian or
composite capitals
cut down to
the
required height.64
The
piers
in the center of the colonnades were
formerly
believed to have been built to reinforce
columns,65
as in the
south colonnade in the lower basilica.
They must, however,
be
part
of the
original plan
of the church and were
fairly
common in Roman church
design
in the late 11th and
early
iii-iili-:i-iii-iii-:-i:-i!lii--i:::::i ---i:-:_-:--::-
ii
-liiii
-
iiiiil-~~ii:iiii-
:-
Fig.
12.
S. Clemente, upper church, prothyron
from south
(Barclay
Lloyd).
12th
centuries.66
Above them,
in the
clerestory zone, pilasters
2.075 m wide
project
0.125 m from the wall. At this level their
construction is of
brick;
the
piers may
be built of the same
masonry. Visually
the
piers
break
up
the nave into two dis-
tinct halves: the eastern half,
with its
plain, grayish columns;
and the western half,
closer to the
high altar,
with its alternat-
ing
fluted and smooth columns.
This division is continued in the
clerestory, where,
east of
the central
pilasters,
the church was lit
by
five round-headed
windows,
a little more than 1.84-2.04 m
high6'
and 0.60-0.64
m
wide,
while west of the central
pilaster
five round-headed
windows of that size alternated with five oculi,
c. 0.80 m in
diameter
(see Fig. 13);
both the round-headed windows and
the oculi have voussoirs 0.15 m
long.
All the
oculi, except
the
first two from the west in the south and the second from the
62. For the custom of
matching
columns across the nave in
Early
Christian times,
see F. W. Deichmann, "Siule und
Ordnung
in der
friihchristlichen Architektur,"
Roemische
Mitteilungen
des Deutsches
Archaeologisches Instituts,
55
(1940), 114ff.; and,
in the Middle
Ages,
see
R. Malmstrom, "The colonnades of
high
medieval churches in
Rome," Gesta,
14
(4975), 37ff.
Malmstrom
says,
however
(p. 42),
that the columns at S. Clemente "conform to no
pattern
whatever," a
conclusion with which I do not
agree.
63. B. Mellini,
"Dell'Antichita di Roma,"
Ms. written before
1667,
when Mellini died;
now Vat. lat. 11905, fols. 16r ff.
64. In the atrium of S. Clemente there is in the north colonnade
part
of an ancient Corinthian
capital
cut down to the
height
of an Ionic
one and a medieval
copy
of it
(our Figs.
24 and
25).
65. Mellini, "Dell'Antichita," loc. cit.;
G.
Ciampini,
De Vetera
Monimenta ... , Rome, 1690, I, 14ff., who also mentions that the
piers
were
formerly
decorated with
very
old
paintings,
"duae
pilae
lateriae
. . .
antiquissimis imaginibus pictae."
66. Discussed
briefly
in
J. E. Barclay Lloyd,
"The medieval church
of S. Maria in Portico in
Rome," Roemisches
Quartalschrift,
76
(1981),
95ff.
67. Since the north aisle roof was raised in the 15th
century (see
Junyent, II
Titolo,
202 and our
Fig. 15),
it was not
possible
to measure
down to the sills, which are now hidden under that later roof.
::: ::ii~iiii--:ii: :::::::................. .................::i~-'_i'ii~i~a:?ii~:-
-i- -i:_; _i---?.-i:::::: '- -- :-:: :. . . . . . . .....ii:: i;_ ::::::~::-:-:
:::::: :w it
_:i i:-:::-:-: ak::
Fig.
13. S. Clemente, upper church, west end of south
clerestory
(Barclay Lloyd).
west in the north
clerestory
were blocked in brickwork similar
to that of the remainder of the church.68 Since this kind of
masonry
was used in Rome till the end of the 12th
century,69
the oculi could have been blocked,
either
during
construction,
or at
any subsequent
date
prior
to c. 1200.
Nonetheless, the
original project envisaged
a
brighter
western half of the
church;
in the end, only
the oculi closest to the
high
altar were
left
open, making
that the most
brightly
lit area of the
church,
its focal
point.
The south aisle is now lit
by
a row of
large rectangular
windows.
Higher up, only
0.39 m below the wall's medieval
cornice of small marble brackets and
bricks,
there were
originally
six round-headed windows 0.85 m
high
and 0.32 m
wide.70
Externally,
the voussoirs of two windows can be seen
..........
i~i ::--:-- : -.. ---:i:: I::ii-:-_ ;-::WX
i I KII wall'j ~~ai
::s~rZA
iow
Fig.
church,
nave
gable
and
apse
from west
(Barclay Lloyd).
in the west wall of the
church; they may
have been round-
headed or
oculi,
but so little survives that one cannot be cer-
tain which.71
The roof of the church has been renewed several times.72 As
in most medieval churches in
Rome, the walls were crowned
externally
with a cornice of small white marble brackets and
bricks. The
present gable
of the nave is not
original,
as can be
seen from behind the
apse (Fig. 14),
where later
masonry
clearly
accounts for the double
slope
of the
present
nave
roof.73 The medieval nave was
probably
covered with a
hipped
roof,
which would account for the
straight
cornice
along
the west wall. Inside,
the church
probably
had no ceil-
ing-the present
one dates from 1715-but had more the
ap-
peatance given
in
Ciampini's
view
(see Fig. 10).74
68. I was able to examine this
masonry
before the recent restora-
tion of the church, when the
blockings
of the medieval
clerestory
windows were
plastered
over and
painted
dark brown. De Rossi,
in a
longitudinal
section drawn
by
F. Fontana, showed a round-headed
window above the central
pier
in the nave;
De Rossi,
"I
monumenti,"
Tav.
x-xI.
This
part
of his reconstruction seems incorrect to me,
since
there is no trace of such windows in the central
pilasters and, indeed,
if
these were built to
strengthen
the
clerestory wall, which I believe is
possible,
such an
opening
would
have
been
inappropriate.
69.
233, 236ff., 267ff.
70.
They
are now blocked and hidden under modern
plaster.
I was
able to measure and
study
them in
January 1984,
when the old
plaster
was
temporarily removed, during
the recent restoration
campaign.
Junyent,
who measured one window in that aisle, previously
visible
there, gave
a
height
of 1.25 m and a width of 0.37
m,
but this
opening
seems to have been somewhat
higher
than the
original windows;
Junyent,
"La basilica
superior," 263,
and
Junyent,
II
Titolo,
202.
71. With the
building
of the
Rosary Chapel
and the
chapel
of Saint
John
the
Baptist,
the lower
parts
of these windows
disappeared.
72.
Notably
in the 15th
century (n. 67)
and
recently,
1980-1984.
73. The rubble
masonry
of the
gable
is
typical
of
early-15th-cen-
tury
construction in Rome.
74.
Junyent
reconstructed a medieval
ceiling
like the one now in
S. Maria in
Cosmedin,
which dates from the
early-20th-century
resto-
ration of that church; Junyent,
II Titolo,
203 and
Fig.
59.
I
have found
no evidence to substantiate this
theory.
212
JSAH,
XLV:3, SEPTEMBER 1986
.......
. ....
Fig.
15. S. Clemente, upper church,
north aisle from west, with
roof raised
(Barclay Lloyd).
N
1
11
\ I / "
S. CLEMENTE
MEDIEVAL CHURCH
Isometric Reconstruction
Fig.
church,
isometric reconstruction
(Barclay Lloyd).
The roofs of the side aisles have also been renewed. That
over the north aisle was raised
considerably
in the 15th cen-
tury; externally
this is
clearly
evident
(Fig. 15).
Inside the roof
space
at the west end is a
groined vault,
which
suggests
an
unfinished
project
to vault the aisles at that time.
Since so much survives of the
12th-century
church, it is not
difficult to reconstruct its main features, as we have
attempted
here. Figure
16 is a reconstruction of it from the southwest.
This
building
was decorated on the interior with
splendid
mo-
saics in the
apse
and on its
surrounding
arch and a mural was
painted
beneath those in the
apse.
The floor was
paved
with
Cosmatesque opus
sectile
designs. Filling
the western half of
the nave was the medieval choir,
with its
ambo, pulpit,
and
lectern. In the center of the
apse
was the
bishop's
throne.
Under a
gabled canopy
stood the
high altar,
the focal
point
of
the
church,
where Mass was celebrated
(see Fig. 9).
In
plan,
elevation,
and decoration the medieval church of
S.
Clemente looked back to
Early
Christian architecture in
Rome. In
many ways
it went back
directly
to its
Early
Chris-
tian
predecessor:
the
previous
church on the site had been built
to almost the same
plan,
with a nave and two aisles
separated
by
ancient columns
supporting
an
arcade;
a semicircular
apse;
and an atrium in front of the basilica. Yet the medieval church
also differed from the
Early
Christian basilica: the latter had
had a wider nave and
apse
and aisles of
nearly equal width;
no
brick
piers originally interrupted
its
colonnades;
the nave was
entered
through
a colonnade rather than one central
doorway;
windows in the
clerestory
were round-headed and much
larger
than those in the medieval church.7"
Proportions
were
changed,
so that the medieval nave was narrower and
steeper
than that of the lower
church;76
to have the south aisle broader
than the north aisle broke the even
symmetry
of the earlier
plan;
the central
piers
in the colonnades made a definite break
in the even
progression
of columns
halfway
down the nave. In
spite
of such
distinctively
medieval
features,
the
upper
church
of S. Clemente is a
key
monument in the renascence of
Early
Christian art and
architecture,
which
began
in Rome in the late
11th
century
and continued in the 12th and 13th centuries.77
Except
for the
blocking
of some of the oculi in the clere-
story,
the fabric of the
upper
church is uniform. There is no
indication from the
building
itself that it was constructed in
more than one
campaign.
The workmanship throughout
the
.... . . . . . . ?.: :--- :iiiiii:::- ::-:-:
7a ::::::: ?::__ ~-i: :-
Fig.
17. S.
Clemente,
upper church, narthex colonnade
(Barclay
Lloyd).
-- :-:iili ..
-:i~iii
~:-::
Fig.
18. S.
Clemente, upper church, atrium, north
portico (Barclay
Lloyd).
church is of
high quality,
both in the
centering
of the windows
and in the
bricklaying.
The materials used
(the
ancient Roman
columns, bases,
and
perhaps capitals),
the decoration
(in
mo-
saic and
fresco),
the
pavement,
and the
liturgical
furniture
(the
choir, throne,
and altar
canopy)
all
speak
of a rich and
discriminating patron. Everything
in the new church is of the
highest quality.
A close examination of the
building
seems to
confirm the truth of the
inscription
on the medieval throne
that Cardinal Anastasius
began
and
completed
the
upper
church of S. Clemente.
In front of the church is the atrium. This is more or less
rectangular,
somewhat wider in the east than in the
west,
26 m
just
west of the
gatehouse,
as
against
25.15 m
just
east of the
narthex,
which is narrower still. Even at its
narrowest,
the
atrium is wider than the church. Its
length
is 28.69 m.
Junyent
pointed
out that its north wall
(see Figs.
7, 8,
wall
5) probably
stands on
top
of the northern colonnade of the
Early
Christian
75. The windows of the
Early
Christian church were c. 3.26 m
high
and 2.06 m wide
(Krautheimer, Corpus, I, 129ff.);
those in the
medieval
clerestory,
as we have
seen,
a little more than 2.00 m
high
and c. 0.60 m wide.
76.
Proportionately,
width to
height
of the
Early
Christian nave
was
approximately 15:13,
of the
12th-century
nave 11:141/2.
77. Pointed out witn
regard
to mural decoration and mosaics
by
Toubert, "Rome et le Mont
Cassin," 3ff.; idem, "Le renouveau
paleochretien," 99ff.; Krautheimer, Rome, 161ff.;
and
Barclay Lloyd,
"S. Maria in
Portico," 95ff.
214
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:'::::::::::`: --:i-i- -i--?---i iii -ii--:-i : : :: :: : :: : :: ::: :- ::- - -:: -- -: - :::-:- ::--?-: :: -' _:? :: _::- ::: ::::- ::: :: :: :i: ::: --_-:.-::: iii-
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r -. -;: : :: : :: -?--:: .: i-:-- :: ::: :::-::-: -- ::;: :: --- :: : :
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: : : :;:I::I : : : :: :i::- -:;:I:-~: i:-i:-:::
: :;:: ?::: : ::::::i::ij ::i:i: :: ::: ::1
-:- -----: --::.-~--_i . _: :?--._-_ :_-:
:: :: :- :---- . :- :; :?:-: :;: _-:
:. _:- : I::: ::_: ::_ :::- .
: i-:---::- : ::: :: i:::-:i-:;_s
Fig.
19. S.
Clemente, upper church, gatehouse,
south wall
(Barclay
Lloyd).
atrium.78 In the center is an
open courtyard,
with a modern
fountain in the middle. To the south, west,
and north the area
is surrounded
by
colonnaded
porticoes (Figs.
17, 18);
those on
the south and north are
trabeated,
while the narthex has an
arcade. On the fourth side there is a double-storied
gatehouse,
with
piers sustaining
arches of different
span
at
ground
level
(see Fig. 11).
The western and eastern
wings
of the atrium are
vaulted, perhaps
because both
support
an
upper
floor.
The
Early
Christian basilica of S. Clemente is known to
have been
preceded by
an
atrium,
so the medieval one
may
be
a
copy
of its
predecessor.
In
many ways
the medieval fore-
court also resembles that in front of Old St.
Peter's,
as it
apparently
existed in the
early
12th
century.
At St.
Peter's,
the
eastern
wing
of the
quadriporticus
was a double-storied
gatehouse,
vaulted on the
ground
floor and with the
oratory
of S. Maria in
Turri
upstairs."
The narthex in front of the
uk 'Mir
PIP
mr
Fig.
20. S.
Clemente, upper church, gatehouse, upper fagade north
of
prothyron (Barclay Lloyd).
Vatican basilica had columns
supporting
an arcade; to the
north, south,
and east there
appear
to have been further
porticoes. Except
for the
portico
in front of the
gatehouse,
all
these features were
repeated
in the medieval atrium of S.
Clemente,
albeit on a smaller scale.
East of the S. Clemente
gatehouse,
and
part
of the same
structure,
is the entrance
porch
or
prothyron (see Fig. 12).
It is a
vaulted
canopy resting
on four ancient columns,
with a little
room above it. The
porch
shelters the medieval
doorway
into
the atrium
and,
from
there,
the church. This was the main
entrance to S. Clemente in the Middle
Ages.
A similar
porch
stood in front of the narthex at Old St.
Peter's.80 Others still exist at S. Maria in Cosmedin
(1123),
S.
Prassede
(part
of an undated
Romanesque restoration),81
and
S. Cosimato
(undated).
The wall
connecting
the north wall of the atrium at S.
Clemente to the narthex
(see Fig.
7,
wall 17 at
point X)
and
parts
of the north wall
(Fig.
7,
wall
5)
are built of
masonry
similar to that of the medieval basilica. On the other
hand,
the
rest of the north wall,
the south wall,
and the entire
gatehouse
and
prothyron
are all built in different
masonry.
In the north wall
(see Fig.
7,
wall
5)
there are several
patches
and
blockings.
A
doorway
has been filled in at the east
end,
near the
gatehouse;
there are
patches
of different kinds of ma-
sonry
farther west.
The
piers
of the
gatehouse,
the middle section of the
fagade,
and the north and south
walls-except
for a
blocking
which
may
have been a closed
doorway
on the south
(Fig. 19)-are
built of medieval
opus
listatum
(with
rows of
tufelli alternating
with three or four courses of
bricks),
with the
intervening
mortarbeds marked with
falsa
cortina
pointing.
All the rest is
78.
Junyent,
II
Titolo,
148. The eastward extent of the
Early
Chris-
tian atrium and details of its
plan
are
unknown, since it has not
yet
been excavated.
79.
Krautheimer, Corpus, v, 261ff.;
for S. Maria in
Turri, ibid.,
268ff. The
gatehouse
at St. Peter's is first mentioned in the 8th cen-
tury,
when it
may
have been
built, though prior
to 757-767.
The
upper
floor of the
gatehouse
at S. Clemente
originally
seems to
have consisted of one
large room, with a small room
opening
off
it,
over
the
prothyron.
80.
Krautheimer, Corpus, v, Fig.
211. It is not clear when this was
built.
81.
Krautheimer, Corpus, III, 232ff., esp.
257.
All W, T
ITT
;Wit
544
Ail
Fig.
21. S.
Clemente, upper church, gatehouse, fagade
south of
prothyron,
with blocked medieval windows or niches
(Barclay Lloyd).
built of brickwork with a 5 x 5 modulus of 28-32 cm and
mortarbeds marked with stilatura
(Figs. 19, 20).
The
prothyron
(see Fig. 12)
is built of the same kind of brickwork above and
below the rows of small marble
brackets,
which seem to mark
gable
lines on all three sides.
Junyent thought
that the
changes
of
masonry
in the
gatehouse
and the marble brackets of the
prothyron
indicated the limits of
separate building phases.82
This need not have been
so,
since both
types
of
masonry
were
used,
alone or
together,
in Rome from the late 11th
century
to
c.
1200.83 Indeed,
both
types
of
masonry
were used in the late-
11th-century
renovation of the lower basilica of
S. Clemente.
The use of
falsa
cortina
pointing distinguishes
this
masonry
from the brickwork of the main
body
of the
upper
church. In
the
prothyron,
since there is the same kind of brickwork above
and below the small marble
brackets,
there seems to have been
not so much a
separate building campaign
as a modification in
plan during
construction.
Junyent
reconstructed the
gatehouse
as a colonnaded
portico
with a
sloping
roof and corner
piers,"4
but the structure
is,
from its
masonry
and several blocked
windows or niches
(Figs. 20, 21), entirely
medieval. Traces of
such
openings--whether
round-headed, keyhole-shaped,
or
rectangular
and framed with marble-show rather
slipshod
craftsmanship.
Both the
masonry
and the
quality
of the work
suggest
that the
gatehouse
and
prothyron
were built
by
a work-
shop
different from that which constructed the church.
The south wall of the atrium
(see Fig. 7,
wall
1)
has been
entirely
rebuilt west of the
gatehouse.
It is constructed of short
brick
fragments (4, 6, 11,
or 13 cm
long), closely packed
together;
the mortar is
crumbly
and the mortarbeds are
low,
with no traces of
falsa
cortina
pointing;
a modulus for five
courses of bricks and mortar
ranges
from as little as 23 /2 cm to
as much as 30
cm,
but most often it measures 26 or 27 cm.
. .. ..... .... ... . .........
-i~ii........ .........
li~g~:~-di*- ~~i~~i~~~i~i ~ -hl I Yk k VL~-~:
I--?-:~:i-6-149-
I'''::::':
13431 UZI
wl . ;?:, _-_-ii-ii' ii ~
VIV""' E 14Piiiii-i-_::- i iiii~iiviii i S:- d C;:::::::::E "':-?:-
Fig.
22. Fra Santi,
S. Clemente,
view as in 1588, woodcut
(Fra
Santi,
Stationi delle chiese di Roma . . . , Venice, 1588, 36; photo:
Bibliotheca
Hertziana).
This
type
of brickwork is
typical
of Roman construction of
the first half of the 13th
century,
when this wall
may
have
been
built.85
Between it and the
gatehouse
there is a clear
fissure. Moreover,
a
plan published by Ciampini
in
169086
shows that is his
day
no columns survived in the southern
portico
of the atrium.
They
must be
18th-century replace-
ments, although
most of the
capitals
are ancient or medieval.
Junyent
believed that the atrium was much remodeled in the
16th
century; doorways
between the
porticoes may
date from
that time.
Junyent
ascribed a
rebuilding
of the western
wing
(see Fig. 17)
to Cardinal Alvarez of
Toledo,
c. 1558.87
Al-
though
the facade of the church has since been redecorated in
Baroque style
and the
capitals
over the four columns have
been recut,
the actual fabric of the narthex could
predate
the
16th
century.
A woodcut
by
Fra
Santiss
(Fig. 22),
made in
82.
Junyent, II Titolo,
195ff.
83.
232ff. and
267ff.
84.
Junyent,
II
Titolo,
196 and
Fig.
55.
85.
233 and 271ff. As
pointed out, ibid., 235ff.,
this is,
I believe,
the
masonry
C. Salterini
gives
for the church of S. Clemente in M. E.
Avagnina,
V.
Garibaldi,
and C. Salterini,
"Strutture murarie
degli
edifici religiosi
di Roma nel
XII secolo,"
Rivista dell'Istituto Nazionale
d'Archeologia
e Storia dell'
Arte,
23-24
(1976-1977), 188ff.;
it is not
typical
of the
masonry
of the
medieval church.
86.
Ciampini,
Vetera Monimenta,
Tab.
xi.
87.
Junyent, II Titolo,
221.
88. From Fra
Santi, Stationi delle Chiese di Roma
per
tutta la
Quaresima, Venice, 1588,
36.
216
ova
::::: 1::
-::
Fig.
23.
Rome, SS. Giovanni e
Paolo, double-storied
narthex,
1154-1159
(Barclay Lloyd).
.iiisrii~ii~:ii~ii:iii;: : i :.:: ::.;- ;. _iiiii::iiii: -;: iii
::::-:r:?::i-:-::-::_:-1-::::: -:-_-,:_:-__: :::i:::i:_::_ :...:.
~---i-: : ::::-- --:-:-?-:_--_--_--__~_ ~~_-:-~_:--:_P : . ---;:_:::;--._:,:;: ;:jii ---:: :::?::: ::-:::::j,:l:i:: -:--; i::_ :::' :~:- _ i---
:: : ::ii_?:i:i-i-i;-:i??:i--iiiiiiiii~ìiiii -i?ai-:--ii-ii-:,:_-_::_:-:?--::--:--:: - : :::::::-::-:::iir_: :.' :;:~::.::a::l :::: 1112:: :::::: ::::::::i:::::i
i- _-i i: -:?--i? i~ i:i-ii i-i ii-ii:i- . i-i :::: . ::::?I:::-:--: :: -.. : : : : :: -:- : :: -:-:-i- i-i ii ~ ii iii iii ii ii ?--.::::-: :-__:_ -:_ - :--::: :: :: -i-? i:i:-: :-: : :: ::
::::::: :: : : : ::: : ::: :: : : : :: : :: -: ::: :- : :: :: -:_ -:_ : -::::--:::-:: ::r;: :::::::: :::::::::::::::::: : : : :
::::: --'-' ::: :: :::::: :: : :: : ::
:::::::_:_::: _::: _ i-i:i--- -i :: i? - -: i: i: i - : : ::::::::::::::::: ::_ :: :
i-i:i:--~i-~---- ? " : ? ?-:::-__-i: :: .-
-i ii-i:~ ~iii-:iiiiiiiiiiiii-i --i iiii.i:i-ij~iii: ~Liji-iiiii~i,~i:~ii-ii~ ~iiii
--:::_:--:-_-:-~i---i- i-i-i:i-_i:::;-- I_~---1?:~ i~_:ei :2:: ::-:::::-::-):i:'::::::: . i --::::_
ij~:-rl::r::::::^m .:. :i::i::-i:
Fig.
24. S.
portico,
first col-
umn from
west, ancient Corinthian
capital
cut down
(Barclay Lloyd).
.. .............
:~
i ii

i!
i
iiii iil
iiiiiii

Fig.
25. S.
portico,
second
column from
west, medieval
copy
of ancient Corinthian
capital
cut
down
(Barclay Lloyd).
1588 before the
Baroque remodeling,
shows the narthex with
an
upper
floor. Such an
arrangement
occurs in other medieval
nartheces in
Rome,
for
example
in that at SS. Giovanni e
Paolo,
built onto the church in 1154-1159
(Fig. 23).89
It is
possible
that Cardinal Alvarez remodeled the
existing
medi-
eval double-storied narthex at S. Clemente. Two medieval
Ionic
capitals
embedded in the corner
piers
of the structure
would seem to survive from that earlier
stage (see Fig. 7,
a and
b).
It
was, however, evidently quite
common for
nartheces,
bell
towers,
and other structures to be added onto Roman
churches in the Middle
Ages."9
At S. Clemente it is not
possi-
ble to
say exactly
when the narthex was
built,
but I would
suggest
it is
medieval, though
restructured in the 16th and
again
in the 18th
century.
The colonnade of the north
portico
seems to be
original (see
Fig. 18).
The columns
(all
but one are
granite) carry
a
variety
of medieval and ancient
capitals.
One is the
top
of an ancient
Corinthian
capital (Fig. 24)
and beside
it,
carved in a
flatter,
more linear
style,
is a medieval
copy (Fig. 25). (It
is
strange
to
see
part
of an ancient
capital imitated.)
The rest are
simple
Ionic
capitals,
all but one made in the Middle
Ages. Two,
with
no
spirals
on their
volutes,
look unfinished. One Ionic
capital
has been
given
a
coating
of stucco and
deep spirals,
as if in
imitation of the ancient Ionic
capital
beside it. This mixture of
capitals may represent
the sort of
spoils
and medieval
copies
originally
in the
church.91
The north
portico is, moreover,
the
one
part
of the atrium that is
probably contemporary
with the
upper basilica,
since the
masonry
of its north wall
is,
in
parts,
similar to that of the church.
On the
whole,
the columns and other Roman
spoils
in the
atrium are not of such
high quality
as those in the church.
Most of the column shafts are of
plain granite
and none is
fluted. This
may
be because the more
beautiful, costly
col-
umns were reserved for the church interior as a matter of
decorum.
Or,
the best columns
may
have been used there
first. In the atrium and in the
church,
the
capitals
and bases
were of varied
type.
The
spoils
of the
prothyron
are
very fine, especially
the two
Corinthian
capitals,
of
differing
ancient Roman
style (Figs. 26,
27),
and
part
of a Doric
frieze,
used face downward for the
north entablature. But, despite
these elements, the construc-
tion of the
prothyron
was weak and the westerncolumns had to
be shored
up later, perhaps
in the
early
13th century.
Around
the main door
leading
into the atrium medieval
carving
in
three different interlace
designs
decorated the
jambs
and lintel
(Figs. 28, 29).
89. For the dates, Krautheimer, Corpus, I, 272.
90.
Avagnina, Garibaldi,
and Salterini, "Strutture murarie,"
passim.
91. Described as "re-used and of different orders," as mentioned
above, and n. 63.
N1/
/
lp?
At
?e, "T
Fig.
26. S. Clemente, upper church, prothyron,
southwest column,
ancient Corinthian
capital (Barclay Lloyd).
MTV,
.5: --i
.........
Fig.
27. S.
Clemente, upper church, prothyron,
northwest
column,
ancient Corinthian
capital (Barclay Lloyd).
!l -:-:! -:i--i i_--iiiii- . i i ~ i-iiiiiii ~ isi
.......
~ ~....
.....i,,~ii
iii :i iiiiiiiiiiiii iiii
i
-iiiiiiiiii
ii
.......i-iii~i--ii
-i: i: ::
ii!i!!i
; : _::
iiii :iiiiiii~iiiii i
....
-: --_ -_-:-- .. : :: : ii :
!
::: i::::: i: :: :: : iiiii~-- ---- -:::-: :
41
INES':IX
O ::-:-?::?~- di::: :: :a:: :
:-:::-:- : ::-::::-:-::B- : _-:--:-~ ; M"'Na-i :-:::
-& Miiiii7iii~i y, mmil~i~i~~:;
Fig.
28. S.
Clemente, upper church,
main door to atrium,
medieval
south
jamb
and lintel
(Barclay Lloyd).
;::-;:- :::a--: -:-: ::::: -?:: a ::::i::j;: i:.:::::: : :
._:i? a:: :-1_?-- _
-?~2-:~ij--~:i: ii-:::i:~::::~ -;:-:-: -::8_:;_:-:_ :
i: : : :?
::::::::::: :--:-: :-:
:i:::1:-
i::::: :
:,:.:
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-: ----_-.-:--ii---::: ~
::,:::
"-'-~i81?l
:-:_:::: :
I :'.:' :::::i:::i:::- :: ::;: :::i: : : :::
ii iiii:iiii: --.i:
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~:::'
ii$i i"iii:i--:-i : i~ :1
: i::
:'--::::' : : :
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:) :: ::
:--w.-
?: :.?-_,,:-:,.ni~~iii:~c~ii~iiii;: ; :
: ;::;::::; :: :::::::::i: i:iii:i iii ii:liiii~~i -ii:ii---i-::?i_?:: : i?:
~iicxa?i~:-i?
- ---:- :1;
:: ::: :: ::B.:: ::-: i:-:
:::;: : ;:: :;::~;:
i ?:iiiir-ij i;i:i- :i-iii-::i-iiii --i-i:il: - I
ii:i:~-_ :.... ii iiipii-ii'i?'::,ssI -:' -:~-i---i--iii iiiiiii~- .:' ii: :
::: i?~i~iiili:i--iiii:i ---:? :: i:::i? _:::::::
-:?: :::
::: :: :::::
i
: :: ; i ,::.:::
D :-?: :
~:~:r::
-;:: ::j'-"':'-`--::::::--;~---:S:al
;-:::::i_--;i::-
::::-::1::::i
:.: ?: :::: -.--:-i _ --::--:. : -::r:-:::~:: ::? - _?_:?_~:_-;_:_~1: :-_._ii:i::;::
b
::::: I
:: :::::::-::~-:'-- :::::::: ?':a---i-i: :::: ir~rr:"):?
----iii2'i-~i~ii:
'--
-I-?ii;~
i-iii?:i-i: ii: ii- i-i--i-i -: i:i-?i-
?' --:-::: ::: ;: :::
Fig.
29. S. Clemente, upper church,
main door to
atrium, north
jamb (Barclay Lloyd).
218
A careful examination of the structure and methods of con-
struction of the S. Clemente
buildings
seems to indicate that
while the church was built in one
campaign,
the
gatehouse,
prothyron,
and
parts
of the atrium were built in others. The
workmanship
in the
atrium, gatehouse,
and
prothyron
is not as
fine as that in the church-as can be seen from the
turning
of
window arches and the number of
repairs required
over the
years.
The differences in
masonry
and in the
quality
of the
work
may
indicate different
building phases, sponsored by
different
patrons.
The
atrium, gatehouse,
and
prothyron
could
have been constructed after the
completion and, indeed,
after
the consecration of the
upper
church.
III. The extent
of
campaign
and
its
completion by
Petrus
These structural features seem to
agree
with the
epigraphic
evidence. The church itself
appears
to have been
begun
and
completed
in one
campaign-as
the
inscription
on the bish-
op's
throne
proclaims.
The atrium
(with
the
possible excep-
tion of the north
wing), gatehouse,
and
prothyron
seem to have
been built
mostly by
other
workshops.
It is
possible
that
they
delimit the work ascribed to Petrus in Gatti's
fragmentary
inscription.
Another
possibility
also exists: Petrus
may
have
built one or all of the other
subsidiary
structures attached to
the church of S. Clemente.
Fra Santi's woodcut of S. Clemente
(see Fig. 22)
shows the
medieval bell
tower, rising
from the northeast corner of the
church.92
Typical of such medieval. campanilia
in
Rome,
it has
three floors with double- and
triple-arched openings
and brick
and marble cornices between each floor. This tower could
have been
contemporaneous
with the
church,
but that seems
unlikely,
for it would have blocked the westernmost window
in the north
clerestory.
It
probably belongs
to a later cam-
paign. Possibly
the
original
tower was
planned
in the south-
east
corner,
over the vaulted
bay
of the
Early
Christian
narthex,
where the
present
bell tower was built after
1628,
when the medieval
campanile
was demolished.93
Two
subsidiary chapels
seem to have existed at S.
Clemente,
perhaps
from medieval
times, although
their exact
date of construction is unknown. Two
18th-century
draw-
ings,
now in the
Royal Library
at
Windsor,
show that from
the 15th
century,
and
possibly before, two
large
arched door-
ways opened
off the north aisle of the
church,
not far from its
center." The eastern arched
doorway formerly
led to the sac-
risty,
the western one to a
chapel,
described as
"very
old" in
the late 16th
century,
when Saint
Cyril's
relics were discov-
ered
there;95
both this
very
old
chapel
and the
sacristy may
have been
medieval,
but there is little
archaeological
evidence
for this. The west wall of the church
(see Fig. 7,
wall
23)
continues in
12th-century masonry,
similar to that of the
church,
to meet what was the north aisle wall of the lower
basilica,
which
may
have been the northern limit of these
structures.
They
have been
added,
schematically
and with dot-
ted lines on our Plan and Reconstruction
(see Fig. 8,
C and
S).
Given the
masonry
of wall
23,
these
may
have been contem-
porary
with the church and hence built
by Anastasius; or, they
may
have been
planned by
him and
completed
later
by
Petrus.
It is also
possible, however,
that the
arrangement
was made
only
in the 15th
century.96
Documentary
and
graphic
evidence from the 16th
century
further records an
oratory
or
chapel
dedicated to Saint
Servulus south of the medieval atrium
(see Fig. 8, D).9'
Fra
Mariano in 1518 described it as a
separate
little
church,
with its
own bell
tower;
it was decorated with marble
(perhaps
it had a
Cosmatesque pavement
or marble
revetment);
a marble slab
covered the
spot
where Saint Servulus was buried. In Fra
Mariano's
day
this
sanctuary
was reached
by leaving
the main
basilica
through
a door on the left and then
crossing
a narrow
92. Fra
Santi, Stationi, loc. cit.
Although Junyent
noted the loca-
tion and form of the bell
tower, he also
published
a
drawing
from
A.
Serafini,
Torri
campanarie
di Roma e del
Lazio, Rome, 1927, Fig.
225,
which shows a
campanile
Serafini
may
have
invented, in the
westernmost
bay
of the north
aisle;
Junyent, II Titolo,
214ff. That Fra
Santi
was
right
about the tower's location is confirmed
by vignettes
of
S. Clemente on several
early maps
of Rome:
the
Strozzi
Map, 1474;
Pirro
Ligorio's Map, 1552; that ofF.
Paciotti, 1557;
the
large
Cartaro
Map,
1576
(our Fig. 30);
the
Map
of A.
Tempesta,
1593
(our Fig. 31);
and the
Maggi Map
of
1625; see A. P. Frutaz, Le Piante di
Roma,
Rome, 1962, I, 140ff., 170ff., 175, 185, 192ff., 208ff.; II, tavs.
159,
222, 228, 238, 241, 266,
311.
93. L. E.
Boyle,
"The fate of the remains of Saint
Cyril,"
in
Boyle,
Kane, and
Guidobaldi, San Clemente
Miscellany II,
22 and n. 31. The
old bell tower still
appears
on
Maggi's Map
of
1625, see
previous
note.
94.
Royal Library, Windsor, Mosaici Antichi, I, 8969, half-plan
of
S.
Clemente; 10346,
Fontana
drawings.
For these
drawings,
see
A.
Noach,
"Two records of wall
paintings
in San
Clemente,"
Burlington Magazine,
91
(1949), 309ff.,
and A. Braham and H.
Hager,
Carlo Fontana . . . , London, 1977, 178ff.
95.
Boyle,
"Saint
Cyril," 13ff., esp.
21 and n. 28. In the lower
church Saint
Cyril
was
probably
buried in the west end, near the north
colonnade,
as has been
convincingly argued by Osborne,
"The
paint-
ing
of the Anastasis,"
255ff.
96. When the
present sacristy
was remodeled in
1968, two 15th-
century
frescoes of the
Virgin
and Child were uncovered
along
its
south wall.
97. Saint Servulus was a
holy beggar
who used to sit in the atrium
of S. Clemente in the 6th
century.
Saint
Gregory
the Great
praised
him for his
patient
endurance and his
feastday
was celebrated at S.
Clemente on 23
December; Gregory
the
Great,
Homilia in
Evangelia,
xv, 5,
in
Migne, Patrologia Latina, 76, 1133ff.,
and
idem, Dialogorum
in
Migne, Patrologia Latina, 77, 341ff.;
for the date of the feast,
C. Baronio, Martyrologium Romanum, Venice, 1597, 568.
........
::::::'y a t ti:
Fig.
30. M.
Cartaro, Map of Rome,
1576
(detail),
from the Colos-
seum to the
Lateran, showing
S. Clemente
(Barclay Lloyd).
courtyard
which
lay
between the church and the
road.98
The
disposition
described
by
Fra Mariano
agrees
with the small
bird's-eye
view of S. Clemente shown on the
Large
Cartaro
Map
of 1576
(Fig. 30):99
a
long,
narrow
courtyard
south of the
church and atrium leads to a small
building
beside the
gatehouse;
at first
glance
this structure looks like a house with
a
large,
tall
chimney, but,
in the
light
of Fra Mariano's de-
scription,
it could well be the
oratory
of Saint
Servulus,
the
"chimney"
its bell tower.
Although
our evidence comes from
the 16th
century,
this little church was
probably
one of the
medieval structures at S. Clemente. It was demolished
during
the
pontificate
of Sixtus V
(1585-1590)
to make
way
for a new
: :. . iiii .. -i i:aii i -: ii ti- : ii i- _: i: .. i:i i: ? :- .. i : :::
?ì~,ii-~,i:~~x: ii:iii:"i: ?~iii~i a: .Ze:~:\:i:i~i-~ii- -: :::? :--?---~:(-:-?:,J i:-: -----~-r_ ;:?-: :::-. ?.;_;---:-i :: ;,::::i::;i: i:\i::\;:: ....
i~~i:iiiii~i~iniii,~iii ~ilii:).~iiP:ieiai~~~~-~~i:iia:c_~.,i~ -i Bis:iaiijii~i-i~~- ~ni:~ d-i?:-d i~~:?:~-::;:i:L- :: )::
::'::;:;::"--::li::':;i:::::-:i:":;:;;i: -i:':l::"::::-::-:::::::-: s::iiii:::::
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:: :::::
:::::::'::ii::::
:j?::::: i:::
:i_;:;::-~:::::-:::-:
-i;---ilii.d :i ~-ii
:::-:-:::: :: : :: .:
i::r-:::::?_:? ::- :.: : ::: ::: -:: ::_ : -_-:-_:-:--:- :::: _?_?-__: :: ::: :::i ?::::::_ .- ::::: -::i:-:---
~~:..:~:::::l..:~~D~1_-,,.~
:-::.;:-':_ ~::i-:::i::?: _?:-:_~-_- i:-~-:--:-l;:-i::-:_: _-:::::: ::?:-::: :?--:;::ii~: '
i~iiii- iiiix isiii-iii:i
i~iiiiiii i-i ::.:
: : :::- :-
iiii.i--iii --ai~is?iiiiili.ii:iiii~ii-~?i$~rii~"ii :iii~.ii~~i ""::.: :i'ii-:?:-i:-''i~----~_-iQ:::::i
::::::--j::::1:::::1:
: :: ?:; : :::
Fig.
31. A.
Tempesta, Map of Rome,
1593
(detail),
from the Colos-
seum to the Lateran, showing
S. Clemente
(Barclay Lloyd).
road south of S.
Clemente;100
the
changes
are
clearly
evident
when Cartaro's
map
of 1576 is
compared
with the
Tempesta
map
of 1593
(Figs. 30,
31).?0'
In
Ciampini's
external view of
S.
Clemente, published
in
1690,
he shows a door
leading
south
from the
gatehouse;102
at this
point
there is an
untidy patch
of
masonry,
which
may
be a later
blocking
of this
doorway;
if
original,
this
may
have been the entrance to the
chapel
from
the
gatehouse.
If the
doorway
in the
chapel
of Saint Catherine
was
medieval,
this
may
have led from the south aisle of the
medieval church to the south
portico
of the atrium and thence
to the
oratory
of Saint Servulus.
It is
interesting
to
speculate
about the function of this ora-
tory.
It was
certainly
a memorial to one of the saints associated
with S. Clemente. It must also have served certain
liturgical
functions. On the feast of Saint Servulus
(23 December)
Mass
may
have been celebrated
there,
or the
oratory may
have been
visited
by
the church's canons in
procession.
Canon
Bernhardus,
prior
of the Lateran canons in the
early
12th cen-
tury
and titular cardinal of S. Clemente from
1145-1158,
tells
of the medieval custom at the
Lateran,
where the canons used
to
go
in
procession
on certain
feastdays
to the
subsidiary chap-
els at their
basilica,
especially
after
Vespers
or
during
the mid-
98.
"De
ostio
quod
in
capite ecclesiae huius est in sinistra
euntis,
in
quoddam angustam
atrium
ingreditur,
in
quo,
inter ecclesiam et
viam
realem, parvula
est ecclesia cum turre
campanaria,
marmoribus or-
nata, illi
infirmo
et patienti
Servulo
dicata,
de
quo Gregorius
in libro
Dialogorum
scribit. Cuius
corpus
in ea
lapide
marmoreo circa me-
dium
ecclesiae tegitur";
Fra
Mariano,
Itinerarium Urbis Romae
(1518),
ed. E.
Bulletti, O.F.M., Rome, 1931,
169. Bulletti in
Fig.
4
gives
an
illustration of the
upper
church of S.
Clemente, with the church of
Saint
Servulus,
derived from a
map
in the museum in
Mantua,
but this
reconstruction does not concur with the
present layout
of the
S. Clemente
buildings.
Ugonio
in 1588 mentioned the
chapel,
with murals
illustrating
the
life of the
saint,
in the
past tense; presumably
he was
writing shortly
after the
building
had been demolished: ". . . san
Gregorio
... viene a
parlar
di
questa
chiesa [S. Clemente],
dicendo che nel
portico
di
essa,
vi stette tutta la vita sua san Servulo Paralittico ... dove si dice che vi
sia il suo
corpo
ancor che non si
sappia
il
luogo specificamente,
e
gia
vi
si vedeva la vita sua con
pitture descritta,
et vi era la
Cappella propria
di S. Servulo ..
.";
P.
Ugonio,
Historia delle Stationi di
Roma, Rome,
1588,
123r.
99.
Frutaz, Piante, I, 185;
nI,
tav. 241.
100.
Junyent
minimizes the effect of the
change
in the road
system
near the
church, wrongly
in
my opinion;
see
Junyent,
Il
Titolo,
19ff.
The new road of Sixtus V
appears
on two
16th-century engravings:
J.
F. Bordini,
De rebus
praeclare gestis
a Sixto V
pon. Max., 1588,
and
G.
Pinadelli,
Portrait
of
Sixtus
V,
surrounded
by
views
of
his
buildings
and
other construction works in
Rome,
second from bottom left: "Vie nove
cum Palatio S.
Johannis";
see
Frutaz, Piante, I, 188 and
189;
II,
tavs.
257, 258.
In 1591 Paul
Alaleon, papal
master of ceremonies, reported
that the
papal procession
went from the Colosseum to the Lateran
along
"the
new road of S. Clemente"
("per
viam novam S.
Clementis");
Vatican
Library,
Barb. lat.
2815,
fol.
205v;
information
kindly given
to me
by
Father F.
MacGuiness,
S.
J.
The new road is also mentioned in L. H.
Heidenreich and W.
Lotz, Architecture in
Italy, 1400-1600,
Harmonds-
worth, 1974,
278 and
Fig.
92.
101.
Frutaz, Piante,
I,
192ff.;
and
IIn,
tav. 266.
102.
Ciampini,
Vetera
Monimenta, I,
Tab.
Ix.
220
night
office
( Vigiliae),
for the
reading
of the
day's lessons.103
One can
imagine
the canons of S. Clemente
walking
from
their choir in the medieval basilica to the
chapel
of Saint
Servulus,
south of the
atrium,
after
Vespers
and at
midnight
on his
feastday,
to
listen, among
other
lessons,
to Saint
Greg-
ory
the Great's account of the saint's life and his death in the
Early
Christian atrium of S. Clemente.
When the
pope
came to S. Clemente to celebrate the Lenten
Station,
it is
possible
that His Holiness donned his vestments
at the
oratory,
in
preparation
for a
magnificent entry
into the
medieval basilica.104
During
the Middle
Ages,
when the
pope
went in
procession
from the Lateran to St. Peter's on the feast
of Saint
Mark, during
the Great
Litanies,
he is said to have
rested at S. Clemente on a bed strewn with aromatic
herbs,
prepared by
the canons of the church.105 It is not clear where
this bed was
placed; surely
it was not in the main
church,
which would have been
open
to all and
sundry; perhaps
it was
in the
nearby canonry,
or in a side
chapel,
such as the
oratory
of Saint
Servulus,
close to the entrance of the
building
complex.
The church of S. Clemente had several
subsidiary
struc-
tures: a bell
tower;
possibly
a
chapel
of Saint
Cyril
and a
sacristy adjoining
the north
aisle;
and
probably
the
oratory
of
Saint Servulus. While Cardinal Anastasius seems to have built
the main
church,
Petrus
may
have been
responsible
for the
prothyron, gatehouse, parts
of the
atrium,
and one or all of the
subsidiary buildings
we have discussed.
IV. An alternative date
of
consecration
When
Junyent published
his
studies,
the
upper
church of
S.
Clemente was believed to have been consecrated in
1128,
on
account of a reference in the calendar of a
12th-century
Psal-
ter.106 This made for a
simple chronology:
when Cardinal
Anastasius died c.
1125,
Petrus finished the
building
and,
three
years later,
in
1128,
the church was consecrated.
SinceJunyent's
time, however,
Father
Boyle
has shown that
the consecration of 1128 referred to in the
12th-century
Psalter
does not
pertain
to the church of S. Clemente in
Rome,
but to
the cell of a
monastery
in Tivoli with the same
name.7"'
No
consecration of the Roman church of S. Clemente is recorded
until the late 13th
century when,
in a document dated 27
June
1295, Pope
Boniface VIII
(1294-1303),
who had made his
nephew
Giacomo Caetani Tommasini cardinal of S. Clem-
ente, granted
as
indulgence
to the church,
which he said he
had consecrated,
". . .
quam
consecrandum
duximus."'os
This
is the
only
sure reference to a medieval consecration of the
church, many years
after it was built. Most
likely,
the
high
altar had been dedicated
long
before and the church had func-
tioned since then.109
Since Father
Boyle published
his
study
the date of consecra-
tion of the medieval church has remained an
open question.
A
suggestion
has been made that the
building
was
completed
c.
1145.110
Krautheimer has
proposed
an earlier date of 1110-
103. Bernhardi Cardinalis at Lateranensis Ecclesiae
Prioris,
Ordo
Offici-
orum
Ecclesiae Lateranensis,
ed. L.
Fischer,
Munich and
Freising, 1916,
ixff. and
passim, e.g., 124,
where the canons'
procession
to the ora-
tory
of Saint Thomas on that saint's
feastday
after
Vespers,
and the
midnight
office
(vigiliae)
of that feast,
with three
readings referring
to
his
martyrdom,
are described: "In nativitate sancti Thome de
apostolis
legimus
et cantamus. De
quo quia
ecclesiam
eius nomine consecratam
in atrio maioris ecclesiae habemus,
similiter
post vesperas pro-
cessionem facimus et
post
collationem vigilias,
in
quibus
III lectiones
in
passione
eius
pro antiquo
uso
populo recitamus,
licet inter
apocry-
phas deputetur."
In the 12th
century,
when the
pope
visited St. Peter's on
great
feastdays,
he and his retinue would arrive in time for
Vespers;
in the
middle of the
night
the
pope
would rise for the
Vigil service,
which
began
with a
procession
to all the
major chapels
and altars in the
church, including
that near the tomb of St.
Peter;
see Benedictus
Canonicus,
Liber Politicus
(1140-1143)
in Le Liber Censuum de
l'kglise
Romaine,
ed. L. Duchesne and P. Fabre, 1889-1905, II,
143.
104. The Lenten Station was celebrated at S. Clemente on the
Monday following
the second
Sunday
in Lent. Once
again,
there were
parallels
at the Lateran and St. Peter's. At the Lateran the
chapel
of
Saint
Thomas,
south of the
narthex,
was used
as a
papal vestry;
at St.
Peter's the
chapel
of Saint
Gregory, by
the
steps
of the atrium,
served
the same
purpose:
Bernhardi ... Ordo . . .
, passim, e.g., 50;
Le Liber
Censuum, I,
294 and n.
11; Krautheimer, Corpus, v,
16 and 275.
105. "Cum autem domnus
papa
venerit cum
processione
ad
ecclesiam sancti Clementis,
ibi
quiescit
in lecto, superposito tapeto
et
herbis
circumquaque positis, que
tamen fiunt a clericis
ejusdem
ecclesie sancti Clementis.
Postquam
vero
quieverit, surgens
vadit
predicto
modo
usque
ad ecclesiam sancte Marie Nove ..
.";
Le Liber
Censuum, I,
308. For these medieval
papal processions, Krautheimer,
Rome,
278ff.
106. Vatican
Library, Capitolare
S. Pietro,
Archivio D156.
Junyent,
Il Titolo,
190.
107.
Boyle,
"The date of consecration,"
1ff.
108.
Boyle,
"The date of consecration,"
11ff. and n.
34, referring
to the document,
Arch.
Segr. Vaticano, Reg.
Vat. 47,
fil. 54r. Cardi-
nal Tommasini was
probably doubly
dear to Boniface VIII after
Benedetto Caetano
junior
had died.
109. Medieval sources seem to
report
several "consecrations" of
churches: some refer to the dedication of an altar,
others to the conse-
cration of the entire edifice.
Evidently,
once the
high
altar had been
consecrated the
building
could be used for
liturgical
functions; pointed
out
by Kinney,
S. Maria in
Trastevere, 335ff.,
with
regard
to Innocent
III's consecration of that church.
Pope
Alexander IV
appears
to have
performed
second "consecrations" at Assisi,
not
only
of S. Francesco,
but of all other
major
churches,
as recorded in his Vita
by
Nicholas de
Castrio, published
in Archivio della Societa Romana di Storia Patria,
xxI
(1898),
110.
110.
Avagnina,
Garibaldi,
and Salterini,
"Strutture murarie," 189,
203. The authors arrive at this date
by comparing
the
masonry
and
windows'
of medieval S. Clemente with the medieval
repairs
at S.
Croce in Gerusalemme,
dated 1144-1145. I do not find the date con-
vincing,
because similar
building techniques
were used elsewhere in
Rome
throughout
the 12th
century; Barclay Lloyd, "Masonry
tech-
niques,"
225ff.
1130.111
So
far,
no clear evidence has been
presented
to
clarity
the issue.
A
15th-century manuscript
in Brussels
may
shed some
light
on the
problem.112
It contains a
description
of the Lateran
basilica and references to a few other churches in
Rome, in-
cluding
S. Clemente.113 The
entry
on S. Clemente is in fact
partly
the
wording
on an
inscription formerly
in the church.114
Since it refers to the altar
containing
the relics of Saint Clem-
ent,
it was
probably
on or close to the
high altar,
for this
would have been the most
fitting place
for the
body
of the
patron
saint to rest. The writer seems to have transcribed the
inscription
as far as the words
"Justinianum imperatorem,"
after which he
appears
to have summarized further informa-
tion about relics and
indulgences.
The
story
of Saint Clement's remains
being brought
to
Rome from Chersona was written in the Middle
Ages,"115
but
the reference to the
Emperor Justinian
is a
novelty. According
to the Translatio S.
Clementis,
written
by
Leo of Ostia for
Paschal
II (1099-1118),
the name of the
Byzantine emperor
at
the time was Michael and the initiative came from
Pope
Nicholas
I, not to mention Saints
Cyril
and Methodius.
John
Capgrave, however,
a close
contemporary
of the author of the
Brussels
manuscript,
also mentions
Emperor Justinian:
"In
iustinianes
tyme
the
emperour
and in
pope
nicholas
tyme
the
first,
an
holy
man
cleped
seint
cyrille
brout this
body
[that is,
of Saint
Clement] oute of the se be revelacion and
Leyd
it at
the cherch of his
name.""11
Fra Mariano, in 1518, mentions the
relics of two saints under the altar of S. Clemente, Saint Clem-
ent and Saint Ignatius of Antioch; from his description, it
seems the relics of the latter were those translated to Rome by
Justinian."117
It looks as though the Brussels writer missed a
line of the inscription, which referred to Saint Ignatius of An-
tioch; perhaps in the 15th and early 16th centuries it was as-
sumed that both saints' relics were
brought to S. Clemente by
the Emperor Justinian. The Brussels manuscript does go on to
mention Saint
Ignatius
of Antioch, when
referring
to indul-
gences granted by Pope Alexander III (1159-1181).
Before
Pope
Alexander's
indulgences the Brussels writer
mentions others
granted by Pope
Gelasius. Indeed, there
would seem to be a connection between the relics and the
indulgences, which were
granted to
people coming
to the
church. The details of the
indulgences do not concern us, but
the name of the pope is of great
interest."11
In the Middle
Ages there was only one
Pope Gelasius,
Gelasius II, who was the immediate successor to
Pope Paschal
II. As a boy Giovanni Caetani had been offered as an oblate at
the
monastery of Monte Cassino-then ruled
by Abbot
Desiderius-119
where he became a monk renowned for his
erudition; Pope Urban
II (1088-1099) made him papal chan-
cellor, an office he continued to hold under Paschal II, who
made him cardinal deacon of S. Maria in
Cosmedin.l20
In 1118
Giovanni Caetani was elected
pope,
but it was to be a short
and troubled
pontificate.
Even at his election violence broke
out, when Cencio
Frangipane, "hissing like a huge dragon,"
stormed into the conclave,
kidnapped
the newly elected
pon-
tiff, and
imprisoned
him in his
palace.121
The
Pope
was set free
by a band of armed Roman nobles and the
Frangipane
had to
swear
allegiance. But on 21
July
1118 violence broke out
again
in Rome, once more led
by
the
Frangipane.122
The
Pope was
forced to flee to S. Paolo f.l.m. and he never returned to
Rome. He died in France in
January
1119 and was buried at
111.
Krautheimer,
Rome,
161. He
gives
no
specific
reason for this
date.
112.
Brussels,
Bibliotheque Royale,
Ms. 14024-28
(6932
in the
Library
book
catalog).
The date "Anno 1.4.6.9." is
given
on fol.
21r;
see P.
Cockshaw, Manuscrits dates en
Belgique, Brussels, 1897, Para. A
225.
113. "De ecclesia Lateranensi et
aliis templis Romae," Ms. 14024-
28, fols.
9r-12v;
also
published
in P.
Lauer, Le Palais du
Latran, Paris,
1911, 408ff.
114. Since it is
important,
we
give
the
entry,
which reads: "In
ecclesia sancti
Clementis sic
scriptum
est in tabula: Sub isto sacro-
sancto ac venerabili altare
requiescit corpus
sanctissimum Clementis
papae
et
martyris, quod
translatum fuit di civitate
Cersona, trans
Pontum
maris,
in hanc urbem
per
xristianissimum et
clementissimum
Justinianum imperatorem
et multe sunt
hujus reliquie
sanctorum et
etiam
indulgencie.
Unde Gelasius
papa
concessit
quotidie
huc
ven-
ientibus
quadraginta
annorum et totidem
quadragenarum
veniam
suorum
peccaminum
de
gratia speciali,
et in
quadragesima dupli-
cantur. Item et felicis recordationis dominus Alexander
papa
3 us ad
honorem sancti
Ignacii martyris, cujus corpus
in isto
requiescit, per
suum
privilegium
concessit veniam 3e
partis omnium peccatorum."
115. See: P.
Meyvaert
and P.
Devos, "Trois
enigmes cyrillo-
methodiennes de la
'Legende Italique'
resolues
grace
i un document
inedit," Analecta
Bollandiana,
73
(1955), 375ff., idem, "Autour de
Leon
d'Ostie
et de sa 'Translatio S.
Clementis,"' Analecta
Bollandiana,
74
(1956), 189ff.; Boyle,
"Saint
Cyril," 13ff.,
and
idem, "Dominican
Lectionaries and Leo of
Ostia's
Translatio S.
Clementis," in
Boyle,
Kane, and
Guidobaldi, San Clemente
Miscellany ii, 195ff.
116. Ye solace of pilgrimes, a
description
of Rome, c. A.D. 1450
by
John Capgrave, an Austin Friar of
King's Lynn,
ed. C. A. Mills,
Oxford, 1911, 107; see also
Boyle,
"Saint
Cyril," 20.
117. ". .. unum, scilicet, Clementis, de Chersona; alterum
vero,
videlicet
Ignatii,
de Antiochia ad Urbem
per
lustinianum
impera-
torem translata . . ."; Fra Mariano, Itinerarium, 168.
Incidentally, the
inscription along
the rim of the medieval
apse
mosaic refers to relics of
saints Clement, Ignatius
of Antioch, and
James.
118.
Ugonio, Historia, 124v, mentions the same
Pope
and the same
indulgences;
later
guidebooks
mention the
indulgences,
but not the
Pope.
119. Liber
Pontificalis,
II,
318 nn.
1, 2, 10.
120. Liber
Pontificalis,
II,
312.
121. Liber
Pontificalis,
II,
313: "more draconis immanissimi sibi-
lans." Cencio's
palace
is called a "domus"; probably
it had a tower
attached. For this kind of residence, see
Krautheimer, Rome, 305ff.
122. Liber
Pontificalis,
II,
316; for the
date, 21
July,
Liber
Pontificalis,
II,
320 n. 40.
222
Cluny.
It is clear that
Pope
Gelasius
belonged
to a
group
of
prelates
in Rome who favored reform and who came from a
monastic
background.
As
papal
chancellor he must have been
close to Paschal II and is credited with
having compiled
his
Registrum.123 Possibly
he was a friend of Cardinal Anastasius
of S.
Clemente,
who is mentioned
among
the cardinals who
elected him to the
papacy.124
If
Pope
Gelasius II
granted indulgences
to
people coming
to
S.
Clemente,
it must have been between his election in
January
1118 and his death a
year
later. No
pope
would
grant
indulgences
to visitors to an unconsecrated church.
Hence,
it
would seem that at least the
high
altar of the medieval church
of S. Clemente was consecrated before
January
1119.
Indeed,
one wonders whether
Pope
Gelasius II himself consecrated it:
as described in the Brussels
manuscript,
he
granted
the indul-
gences
on account of the relics under the
high
altar. We have
seen that
Pope
Boniface VIII
granted indulgences
on the occa-
sion of his consecration too. If
Pope
Gelasius II did consecrate
the
high
altar of S.
Clemente,
it would have been before his
departure
from Rome in
July
1118. The evidence of the Brus-
sels
manuscript
is not clear
enough
to be conclusive,
but it
does make
likely
a consecration date
ofJanuary-July
1118 and
a terminus ante
quem
of
January
1119.
Such a date would concur with the other evidence. Even if
the decoration of the
upper
church were not
complete by
1118/9,
it would still have been
possible
for Cardinal
Anastasius to have
"begun
and finished" the
building
of the
medieval
basilica,
as the
inscription
on the
bishop's
throne and
the
masonry
attest. He could have left
parts
of the
atrium,
the
gatehouse,
the
prothyron,
or the
for Petrus
to
bring
to
completion
after his death in 1125/6.
A fresh
investigation
of the fabric of S. Clemente has en-
abled us to
distinguish
the extent of the renovation of the
Early
Christian basilica in the late 11th
century;
to
assign
the
rebuilding
of the church itself to Cardinal Anastasius
(c.
1099-
c.
1125);
and to note
changes
of
workmanship
in the
atrium,
gatehouse,
and
prothyron, perhaps
at a later date. Documen-
tary
and
graphic
sources indicate the existence of further sub-
sidiary
structures
(a
bell
tower,
the
chapel
of Saint
Cyril,
a
sacristy,
and the
oratory
of Saint
Servulus).
The atrium and
these
could have been built after the
up-
per
church was
completed
and consecrated. An alternative
date of consecration in 1118/9 is
suggested by
evidence from
an
inscription
on or near the
high altar,
recorded in the 15th
century.
A
comparison
with what is known of the Lateran
basilica and Old St. Peter's
re-emphasizes
the
importance
of
S. Clemente in the renascence of
Early
Christian art and archi-
tecture in
12th-century
Rome. Not
only
is this one of the most
beautiful medieval churches in
Rome,
it is also
among
the
most
fascinating
in its historical
development.
123. De viris illustribus
Casinensibus,
see Liber
Pontificalis, II,
318 n.
10.
124. Liber
Pontificalis,
II,
312.
Table I
Columns, capitals,
and bases in the
medieval church
of
S. Clemente.
(Numbers correspond
to those on the
survey plan,
our
Fig. 7.)
Column
shafts
I. Nave
1. Aswan
granite
2.
fluted,
Proconnesian
marble
3. Forum
granite
4.
fluted,
Proconnesian
marble
5.
cipollino
6. Proconnesian marble
7.
cipollino
8.
cipollino
9. Italian
granite
10.
fluted,
Proconnesian
marble
11. Forum
granite
12.
fluted,
Proconnesian
marble
13.
gray-veined
marble
14.
Troy granite
15.
cipollino
16.
cipollino
Capitals
I. Nave
all
18th-century Ionic
II. Atrium
a, b: medieval Ionic
(embedded
in
piers)
21-24: recut
18th-century (?)
Ionic
25, 26: medieval Ionic
27. ancient Roman Ionic corner
capital
28. Doric
(?)
29, 30: ancient Ionic
31.
top
of an ancient Corinthian
capital
32.
copy
of 31, made in the Middle
Ages
33, 34:
simple
medieval Ionic
(no carving
on
volutes)
35. medieval
Ionic, stuccoed
36. ancient Roman Ionic
III.
Prothyron
37, 38: ancient Corinthian
Bases
II. Atrium
21, 22, 24,
34:
Troy granite
23. Elba
granite (?)
25, 27, 30, 31, 32,
33: Italian
granite
26, 29, 35: Aswan
granite
36. Proconnesian marble
III.
Prothyron
37.
cipollino
38. Italian
granite
39,
40: Sardinian
granite
I. Nave
6, 7, 8, 9: no
longer
visible
1, 2,
10: ancient Ionic
15. medieval cushion
all others: ancient Attic
II. Atrium
24. inverted ancient
impost
slab
(?)
26. ancient Ionic
36. unfinished
(medieval ?)
all others: ancient Attic
III.
Prothyron
39, 40: ancient Attic

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The Building History of the Medieval Church of S.

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